


“The world might end…

by Schattenschreiberin



Series: "There's a tomorrow for everyone" [1]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Character Death, M/M, Problems with immortality, a lot of it, painful memories
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:46:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 45,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25108690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schattenschreiberin/pseuds/Schattenschreiberin
Summary: … but I’ll always have you with me”So far being friends with mortals has earned Jack painful heartbreaks and nightmares.But after the Man in the Moon tells the Guardians that the world might be close to its end the Winter Spirit can’t continue to stay away from his only remaining friend.With the help of the other Guardians and his sister he finally manages to push the haunting memories aside in favor of brighter days. Though the world is still in danger and even an immortal has only so much time in a day.And the actions of certain other seasonal spirits are not helping.
Relationships: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood), Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood)
Series: "There's a tomorrow for everyone" [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859380
Comments: 14
Kudos: 43





	1. Chapter 1

The door to the globe room opened slowly and closed again, the visitor obviously not caring about the noise he was making. It got drowned out by the usual sounds from the workshop below anyway.

The snow in his white hair and on his clothes melted from the heat of the fire while Jack was walking past the big fireplace, dragging the end of his staff across the floor. He took a seat at the window, leaning his staff against the wall beside him and letting his head just fall against the glass.

Everything about the Guardian of Fun just seemed to scream to leave him alone and that he was just done with this day. Even Phil noticed it and just let him pass when Jack arrived at the North pole.

“It’s been a while, Jack”

When North took a seat the Winter Spirit sighed and sat up straight to look at the older guardian. It had been almost an hour since he came in. An hour spent with just staring at the snow and ice outside. “Tooth told me to take a break after we ran into each other last night”

“Only told you to?”

“It was more of a demand…”

North frowned at the sound of exhaustion in Jacks voice and the overall tired look on his face “I strongly advice you the same”

“I got it. I already am here and resting. I don’t need everyone of you to treat me like a child”

“Nobody is treating you like child, Jack. Tooth and I have had the same talk with the Bunny and even Sandy”

“The Kangaroo is at it too? I thought he was still busy with his Easter preparations”

Norths' concerned frown deepened “It has been three weeks since Easter”

Jack looked at him for a few seconds, slowly realizing to what kind of degree he had lost track of time. Then a weak smile appeared on his face “Bet he´s happy that I didn’t ruin his egg hunt this year” 

“Jack. I urge you to rest and sleep at least for a while”, North got up, maybe to get at least a pillow for his friend since Jack didn’t seem to have any plans to move from his current spot, but turned around when he heard an unwilling groan “I will have Sandy knock you out”

That was a threat.

_“Looking good, Jack”_

_“Now you’re just making fun of me…”_

_“I would never”, the blond girl beside him gave him one of these sincere smiles that only few people managed to be able to give “Only if you actually do something funny”_

_“I can only imagine that I look like a fool right now” Jack smiled and looked at the colorful flower crown that was resting in her lap. He lost motivation five minutes ago and put the ‘crown’ he managed to put together on his head. It was unusual for him to have so many flowers around him. There were still patches of snow around them, but it was more spring then winter at this point._

_“You have to go soon, don’t you?”_

_“I can’t just extend the winter around here…”_

_“You need to tell me about all the places you saw when you get back”_

_“Would never forget about that”_

_He loved spending time with the open-minded girl. She wasn’t a child anymore, but she still believed in almost everything. Much like Jack she loved to spread joy and fun, although in a less mischievous way than he did._

_The first time they met he saw her dancing through the melting snow. At first, he thought she was just happy that the cold winter had finally ended but he later learned that she was simply celebrating the change of the season, not that the winter was ending._

_She did like spring more than winter, but the first snowfall made her just as excited as seeing the first flowers blooming._

_Traveling and exploring the whole world was her dream but due to her protective family and duties she had to fulfill once she became older that wish never came true. So, Jack did his best to tell her about every town, every forest and every mountain top he came across over the course of the nine months away from her and based on his stories she created paintings of all those places she would never see with her own eyes._

_Winters were filled with laughter of children, eventually her own, stories and little pranks that they pulled on each other. Jack was never able to determine if her fiancé and eventual husband was able to see him, but he never hesitated to pull the brunet into a snowball fight or include him in a prank._

_Spending time with her and her family was always pleasant and fun. For some reason Jack thought it would never end._

**_But it did…_ **

_“Jack… Why are you crying?” it was a weak but still caring smile._

_The Guardian was leaning against the wall beside the bed. Through his tears he managed to force a smile “I… I guess I’m… jealous that your hair is as white as mine now…”_

_He could hear a silent laugh “You were always terrible at lying…”_

_The smile fell from his face alongside more tears “I’m… going to miss you…”_

**_Jack Frost didn’t realize he still had a beating heart. Until it broke that day for the first time._ **

****

The glass of the big window was only inches from his nose when he woke up, sunrays blinding him for a moment. He was still lying at the same spot where Sandy had knocked him out with his dream sand. Just in a slightly different position. During his dream, which was nicer than the usual ones, he had wrapped his arms around himself, clutching the fabric of his hoodie.

How long did he sleep?

Still feeling tired and a bit groggy from just waking up he tried to turn his back to the window to maybe try and fall asleep again, but he just ended up falling to the ground. That’s what he got from sleeping on a windowsill…

After falling on his face Jack didn’t feel like sleeping anymore. He got up and started stretching in hopes of waking up a bit more and then walked towards the globe. With his hands buried in the pocket of his Hoodie he looked up at the lights.

Every light was a child who believed in the guardians.

And they were slowly going out.

Jack had seen this once before, just happening very fast, but this time was different.

It wasn’t a lack of believe… it was a lack of life itself.

“Feeling better?”

Jack nodded when North joined him “A little bit. Give Sandy my thanks if you see him before I do”

“You’re free to stay and rest up completely”

“I can’t sit still long enough for that…” suddenly Jack had to laugh, and North raised an eyebrow “You won’t be able to guess who I ran into a few days ago”

“Sure I wouldn’t be able to?” the older guardian smiled. It had been a long time since he heard Jack laugh.

The Winter Spirit shook his head “I saw Pitch. Seems like even he is looking for it. Whatever it actually is”

It was silent for a while.

“It shouldn’t have been so surprising though… If there is nobody left to fear him, he has the same problems as everyone else”

North nodded. Imagining their nemesis working to reach the same goal out of desperation was funny for… one second after Jack said it out loud.

They both looked at the globe for a little while longer before Jack turned around to take his staff.

“You’re leaving?”

“Like I said… I can’t sit still while this is going on”

The Man in the Moon was never very talkative.

When North called the Guardians to the Pole because the Moon had an important message for them, it was surprising for everyone. The last message was received a few hundred years ago where the Moon decided Jack should become a guardian.

This time it wasn’t a new guardian or a warning about Pitch being megalomaniac. They had noticed it since a few months prior. People were dying without any logical explanation.

And then the Moon told them that this… could be the end of the world. If they didn’t find a way to stop it. What was ‘it’? Not even the Moon seemed to know.

Now, fourteen months later, Jacks’ relationship with the wind seemed to have greatly deteriorated. Probably because Jack couldn’t make up his mind where he wanted to go. Or maybe the wind was just thinking what everyone else did. That Jack needed a break. But letting him crash into a tree didn’t stop Jack Frost from turning every stone for the fifth or sixth time. If flying wasn’t working out so well, he would just walk.

To eventually just fall into the snow to stare at the grey sky.

“I don’t know what to do anymore…”

He, again, had lost track of time. How many days had passed since he left the North Pole? At this rate he would probably miss Christmas too.

He couldn’t find anything unusual. Maybe Sandy or Bunny did but he didn’t see either of them. And if they did find something North would’ve called all Guardians with the northern lights. Right?

“Maybe I should just listen to North and Tooth… And rest a bit more” Jack sighed, got up and looked around “Would you please take me to the North Pole? It’ll be the last thing I’ll ask from you today, alright?”

The Wind definitely had something against him.

He got to his destination. Just the landing wasn’t as elegant and painless as usual.

To his surprise he found Tooth in the Globe room. She turned around when she heard the door and smiled brightly before flying over to Jack and pulling him into a tight hug “There you are. I was getting worried”

Jack flinched slightly before hugging her back “Good to see you too, Tooth”

The colorful fairy didn’t miss his flinching and gave him a worried look “Is everything alright?”

“I… I crashed into a wall” he could feel his cheeks turning red out of embarrassment. He didn’t tell anybody that he had trouble with the wind.

“What?!”

“It’s nothing. Probably just gonna get a bruise on my shoulder”

Tooth still looked concerned but let him go. “North told me that you were here and had a goodnights sleep”

Jack nodded “I think I owe it to Sandy though. That I could actually sleep longer than two hours”

“Well I’m glad you listened to me and got at least a little bit of rest. Bunny is next on my list”

Jack was silent for a moment. Then he shook his head and walked over towards the Globe.

He felt a hand on his unbruised shoulder and looked up to Tooth “You didn’t hear anything new, did you?”

She shook her head “Unfortunately no. Nothing good but nothing bad either”

Both of them looked up to the lights in silence. After a while Tooth felt the need to say something uplifting and looked back at Jack but there was something in his eyes that made her stop and follow his gaze to a tiny speck of land in the middle of the ocean. It had quite a few lights on it and was far away from almost everything else.

“Jack, no!”

The whitehaired Guardian flinched again when Tooth suddenly grabbed him at both shoulders and forced him around to look at her.

“We agreed that you wouldn’t go back there. Ever” Tooths’ look was stern. Like a mother who caught her child breaking a promise.

Jack was taken aback by her words for a moment before he shook her hands of and glared at her “I know! Just because I’m looking at something doesn’t mean I want to go there”

“Jack, we talked about this-“

“We did. Five years ago. Not five hundred or thousand. I didn’t forget! I understand why I need to stay away, Tooth. I know why…” he took a deep breath and then just looked at the floor, arms wrapped around him like they were when he woke up from his dream “We talked about it… And I know you’re right. But people are dying all over… you can’t blame me for thinking about…” he trailed off and just leaned back against the banister.

“Jack, I…”, feeling bad for immediately yelling at her friend Tooth gently pulled him into another hug “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t yell like that… I’m just worried about you”

“I know…”, Jack raised his head and smiled “It’s okay. I’d just like to try and sleep for a bit”

“Are you going to sleep on the windowsill again?”

“It’s probably the best place in the house”

“… It’s not”

Why North had a few guestrooms was something no one ever questioned.

They were there and Tooth insisted to drag Jack into one, so he was away from the noise and sunlight. And it would probably be harder to fall out of a bed then from a windowsill.


	2. Chapter 2

_“Frost!”_

_Most people wouldn’t be able to tell if this was just her calling him by his name or commanding him. Hell, most people would just see a little redhead yelling at a tree._

_Leaning against the trunk of the tree Jack grinned and hit the top of his staff against the wood above his head. Frost started immediately spreading over the trees’ rough bark, winding around the trunk up to the branches. Seemingly splitting up and traveling along several branches at once before one of the wooden targets was hit. By his frost and only seconds later by an arrow._

_It was a stupid game._

_More target practice for the little girl._

_But the Guardian of Fun still enjoyed it._

_“Last arrow?”_

_“You wish! New target?”_

_Jack put on a shocked expression when bow and arrow were suddenly pointed at him, but he was fast to counter the playful threat by ‘accidentally’ missing her with a snowball. Giggling she easily dodged and then looked up into the tree where Jack had decided to set up another target._

_It was not needed at all, but he had sought out one of the thicker branches to first sit on it to then slid back and hanging upside down on his legs, grabbing the branches under his head and shaking them. Once all snow had fallen to the ground icicles of various sizes hung from the naked branches. Again. None of this was really necessary, he could’ve done it without moving from his spot on the ground, but it was just way more fun like this._

_“Ready?!”_

_“Ready!”_

_The little girl always seemed to be a bundle of pure energy. Spending as much of her day as possible outside, no matter the weather or season, exploring, playing, practicing things like archery with her father. Never able to sit still for long periods of time, always out for adventures. It was no wonder that she and the Guardian of Fun spend so much time together during the snowy, cold days._

_Growing up didn’t take anything away from her freedom-loving spirit and thirst for adventure._

_There were a few times where Jack was glad that she decided to let him tag along due to some incidents with falling trees, cracking ice and wild animals. She was everything but helpless though. During some playful fights or tests of strength it wasn’t too unusual for her to overpower the Winter Spirit, much to her own amusement. Combined with her skills with bow and arrow she wasn’t someone you wanted as your enemy._

**_But…_ **

_Seeing her grow up, grow older, with each passing year was too much and he left. He was afraid of another heartbreak. The last one had just hurt too much._

_But it was too late for him, he couldn’t stay away._

_When he came back… He had missed the entire rest of her life._

_Sadness and… guilt filled his still cracked heart and he sunk to the ground in front of the tombstone. Had there been a time when she would’ve needed his help? Did anything bad happen that he could’ve prevented?_

**_Would she still be alive if he hadn’t left?!_ **

It was dead silent in the room.

Jack was lying on the floor, trembling and holding his head. Did it hurt from colliding with the ground or from all the memories and thoughts that were, once again, just going haywire inside it? Back and forth between fun, happy moments and sorrow. Scenarios his mind was making up about all the things that could’ve happened, things he could’ve easily prevented.

But only if he had been there!

The pain slowly spread from his head to his watering eyes and his heart.

Nightmares were not only born out of fear.

It took the Winter Spirit almost two hours to finally wake up completely and calm down.

He slowly stood up and sat back down on the bed. One hand resting on his knee while the other one was still on his chest. Feeling his own heartbeat.

After a few more minutes he grabbed the collar of his hoodie and pulled out a plain necklace that was hidden underneath. It wasn’t much more than a piece of strong string with three wooden pendants. Each of them had a single symbol on it.

A sun. Faint yellow splotches showing that he attempted to color it at some point, a long time ago.

An Arrow. A very poorly attempt to carve the picture of a bear still showed on the backside.

And a dragon.

Making the pendants had marked the end of these parts of his never-ending life. The point where he thought that he was done with the sorrow and guilt.

Making the third had no point to it…

Jack looked at the dragon for what felt like an eternity.

The world was possibly ending, people were dying without a reason, he was plagued by these sorts of nightmares for the past year and a half.

Finally, he made his decision.

While wiping the last tears from his face with one of his sleeves he got up, picked up his staff that had fallen onto the floor and then left the room.

Outside of the workshop the wind immediately started tugging at his hair and clothes as if it was eager to finally take him to this place. He couldn’t help but smile at this thought. “Alright… Bring me back to Berk”

Berk had snow nine months of the year and hail the remaining three so that wasn’t something Jack had to worry about. The thing he was slightly worried about was all the lights that the globe was always showing.

A lot of people on this little speck of land believed in at least one of the guardians. He had never intentionally looked for these people and he didn’t plan on starting today. The only thing he planned to do was to see… if he was still here.

The sun wasn’t up yet and with his hood covering his snow-white hair Jack hoped he wouldn’t be easily spotted in the shadows. If someone was able to see him.

The first thing he noticed after landing on the outskirts of the little town was… heartwarming. Not many people were on the streets but there was an unusual amount of peaceful dragons around. So… He did accomplish his goal. They didn’t seem to fight the dragons anymore. Jack felt relieved. That meant that both would still be around, right? Just where…?

Going to his house didn’t seem like a smart idea. He probably would still be asleep if he was there. Maybe the arena? Jack remembered that he wasn’t really fond of the place, but many things seemed to have changed in the last years… While he was still walking without having decided where to search something else made the decision for him. Three dragons came into view. Black shadows with the rising sun at their backs.

And one of them was not like any other dragon.

With a bright smile on his face Jack started to run after them.

Fresh snow was thrown aside when the winged reptiles landed in front of the chiefs’ house. Jack could only hope he was hidden enough behind one of the higher snowdrifts between the house and the forest. He still didn’t want to be spotted by anyone. He had learned that the dragons had no problem seeing him. The only question was if their Riders were able to see him too.

Now that the sun was rising, he could see them more clearly and even after five years he was able to immediately recognize the blond girl, the only Rider whose face he was able to see.

Astrid.

It would’ve been hard to forget her. Even though he never talked to her himself, he had seen her and heard a lot about her.

He was still able to recall all the dragons. Astrid was standing next to a Deadly Nadder. Which was the kind of dragon Jack liked the most. Next to the Nadder was a Monstrous Nightmare. Jack could only guess, since its Rider was facing Astrid, who he was. Maybe Snotlout? The Guardian had only seen him once from afar and he didn’t leave a good impression. He would probably fit the monstrous dragon.

And then there was Toothless. Easily recognizable. He didn’t seem to have changed at all during the last few years. The only difference Jack could see from his hiding spot was the red color of his left tailfin. Hiccup had to be the third Rider then. If he was, he had grown a lot…

The slight breeze tugged at his clothes again as if it tried to remind him of something. The Winter Spirit realized very fast what it was when Toothless’ head shot up and he stared in his direction. The wind was carrying Jacks’ scent right into the dragons’ sensitive nose.

And Toothless had never liked that scent.

They both took off at the same time towards the forest.

Jack wasn’t willing to leave yet so he decided that it was a fairly good idea to hide in the trees since Toothless was pretty much bound to the ground without his Rider. However, the Guardian underestimated two things.

First, how hard it would be to navigate through the treetops and second… how much of a grudge Toothless was still holding. The dragon was not willing to let the Guardian just get away like that. With the shockwave of one of his fireballs Toothless caused Jack to smash into a tree and fall to the ground like a stone.

Seconds later Jack was pinned down by the black dragon. Face almost completely buried in the snow and one arm trapped underneath his body. He didn’t expect Toothless to be this mad at him…

All he could hear was the Night Furys’ growling and he winced in pain as his bruised shoulder was pushed down into the snow by the dragons’ weight. Something told him that smashing into the tree and getting hit by Toothless did not help his injurie at all.

“I’m sorry, Toothless”, his voice was quiet und muffled through the snow, but he didn’t doubt that Toothless was able to hear him “For everything that ever offended you. Please don’t kill me… Just let go and you’ll never have to see me again, alright?”

The Night Fury seemed to consider whether he should follow his request or if a second fireball would be appropriate revenge for all of Jacks’ pranks and teasing. When someone called Toothless’ name in the distance Jack felt slightly panicked. He didn’t want to meet and talk to him. He just wanted to know and see if Hiccup was still here, preferably not dead and happy.

“Toothless, please. Please let me go” blindly he tried to push the dragon off him with his one free arm. Which only earned him a scoff from Toothless and more pain.

Now he could hear that someone was coming. Stepping on the snow and fallen branches. He was definitely able to see the black dragon at this point.

“Toothless, what did you-“

The footsteps came to a halt not far away from the dragon and its prey. His voice sounded slightly different from what Jack remembered but then again… it had been five years. The Guardian could only imagine how Hiccup was standing there and watching his dragon pin down either nothing or a guy with a blue hoodie, face down in the snow.

It was quiet for what Jack felt was an eternity but in reality, not even 30 seconds before the Rider came closer and pulled the hood from Jacks’ head to reveal the mess of white hair.

“… Jack?”

Jack couldn’t quite decide if he sounded just surprised, confused or if he was angry in addition to all of that. He had all right to be after all… “… Hi… Hiccup” it was the most awkward greeting that ever left his mouth but under the current circumstances it was the best he could do “… Could you get Toothless off me?”

“I’m not sure if you don’t deserve this”

He was not happy to see him…

Jack had no idea what to say. Sure, he had thought about what he could say if he would decide to go and talk to Hiccup, but he couldn’t come up with anything.

“Why are you here, Jack?”

That should be an easy answer. Maybe? There were so many reasons though. The world was maybe ending after all. But aside from that…

“I… I missed you”

“You missed me?”, Hiccup sounded like he didn’t believe him at all “After five years you suddenly decide that you miss me?”

Jack already became frustrated with himself “No. I missed you since the moment I left. I missed you and I missed Toothless!”

“Then why did you just leave?”

Again. There were so many reasons why he decided that he should and could leave. “… I thought… you would be fine without me. With Toothless… and Astrid. I never doubted that you would succeed… I was able to leave because I told myself that I wasn’t needed here…” In the first few months he had told himself that countless times, every time he came close to the island or just stared at the globe. He said those same words to Tooth, after she finally got him to tell her what was wrong, and she agreed with him. Hiccup would be fine, especially with friends like Toothless and Astrid by his side.

“How did you know that Astrid would help us?” Hiccup sounded confused. To him, Jack had vanished the day before Astrid had met Toothless for the first time.

Jack stayed silent for a moment, trying to get his arm into a position where Toothless’ weight was feeling less painful. “Because I saw you flying with her… and she didn’t seem to have anything against it…Was I wrong?” Somehow Astrid always gave Jack the impression that she was a girl that was well capable and willing to kill a dragon but also… that she would be willing to help if Hiccup convinced her and showed her that dragons could be great allies and friends. That was the reason why he trusted her to keep Hiccup safe.

“You weren’t wrong”, Hiccup had to admit “But you really missed something if that’s the moment you decided to leave. Having her and Toothless did help me. But having one of the few people who believed in me for so long just leave right before the day I was supposed to kill a dragon in front of the entire village did not help”

Those last few words made the Guardian flinch and feel the need to pull on his hair like he had done so many times over the course of the last year whenever he was reminded of his past friends. He knew that he messed up so many times and different things. That’s why he only wanted to see Hiccup and not talk to him. “I know and I’m sorry. I’m just… I’m just a selfish coward…” Tooth always told him that he shouldn’t think of himself like that, but it was true. He left because he was afraid of the pain. Of another heartbreak. Of seeing another friend grow old and die.

He didn’t even plan on getting to know Hiccup at first. He was just catching his eye once in a while when he brought the winter to Berk and hung around a bit. Between all the big and bulky Vikings, he was always outstanding in one way or another. And he reminded him of himself a little bit.

Struggling to fit in. To be seen.

For a few years he never interacted with Hiccup.

But when he saw him shooting down Toothless, he got curios. Jack had already gathered that Hiccup was way more brain than brawn compared to most of the other villagers, but he just got fascinated by his behavior after this. Sure. People from other parts of the world would’ve maybe acted similar to Hiccup but he couldn’t think of anyone who would go after a dragon that almost killed you and then try to befriend and train it.

Even though it wasn’t winter anymore Jack stayed and watched how Hiccup accomplished what no other Viking had even thought about to try. At some point during that time Toothless had spotted him and of course Hiccup had too after the black dragon started growling.

Jack had introduced himself and explained why he was hanging out in a tree, watching the little Viking and the not so little dragon.

That was the mistake he made. He should’ve just left then and there but he just had to stay and get to know him. He just had to get attached to another mortal being. He just had to proof to himself that no, he didn’t learn his lesson the first two times.

Hiccup and Toothless had every right to be mad at him for multiple reasons. Maybe he would feel a little better after being yelled at.

But there was no yelling.

It was quiet as if Hiccup needed some time to understand why being a _selfish_ coward would cause Jack to leave after making sure that he had enough supportive people around him.

Suddenly Toothless lifted his right paw. He was still pinning Jack to the ground, but something led the dragon to inspect the blue fabric under his paw. Before he could do much more though Hiccup sighed, ran a hand through his hair and petting Toothless’ head with the other one “Let him get up, bud”

Slightly reluctant the Night Fury took a few steps back and sat down. He wasn’t done with the Winter Spirit.

The young Viking watched as Jack struggled for a moment before managing to get up, all the while holding and rubbing his right upper arm. “I expect a real explanation from you”

Avoiding to look at his old friend Jack again tried to find the right words to explain himself. Why was it so difficult? The pain from his arm didn’t really help him, there was definitely something wrong with it, but he had bigger worries. Ultimately, he just turned around and practically threw his reason into Hiccups face “I am scared”

The two boys just looked at each other after that. Hiccup with a slightly confused look and seemingly waiting for Jack to continue and elaborate on what exactly he was scared of, but Jack didn’t continue. He had to look up to meet the younger ones’ green eyes, the Viking was quite a few inches taller than him now. “You’ve grown… quite a bit” “And you… didn’t at all?” Only now that Jack was standing upright and pointed it out himself realized Hiccup that he looked almost exactly like the last time they had spoken. Five years ago. The only difference seemed to be the bags under his blue eyes.

Now it slowly came back to the Guardian, the big difference between the dragon riding Viking and his two late friends. He never told Hiccup that he was immortal, and he didn’t spend enough time with him for Hiccup to find it out himself.

“I…” now having _another_ thing to explain Jack broke eye contact and looked around as if he hoped someone or something was around that could help him, but every single thought he had got literally blown away when he looked towards the ground between them and saw… “Wh- What happened to your leg?!”

The auburn-haired teen looked down at his prosthetic “I lost it during a battle the day after you left. It’s kind of a longer story so-“ He got interrupted by a ‘thud’ and a surprised sound from Toothless. “Jack?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It always bothered me that the first Httyd movie was opened up with the "Berk has nine months of snow and three of hail" introduction but we got none of that in the entire movie...
> 
> I wanted to say 'thank you' for the kudos  
> And 'sorry' for my probably wrong capitalization...


	3. Chapter 3

Hiccup was glad that his house was close to the woods.

It would probably look quite strange to everyone who wasn’t able to see Jack Frost and he wasn’t keen on explaining who he was to the people who were able to see him.

Sure, he was still mad at Jack for just disappearing when he would’ve needed his support and help the most but after seeing him just collapse worries, at least temporarily, replaced the anger. Same seemed to go for Toothless who was carrying Jacks’ staff with an obvious worried look in his big eyes.

In addition to being unconscious for a worryingly amount of time now the white-haired teen seemed to have injured his arm, Hiccup couldn’t really tell since he wasn’t able to see through the dark blue fabric of Jacks’ hoodie. He had a few things to take care of before he would continue to demand answers to all his questions.

The young Viking had just entered his house through the back door, relieved to see that his father had already left, when Jack started to wake up.

“Mhm…” slowly blinking, eyes hardly able to focus, he looked up at Hiccup who only glanced at him without stopping “Hic…?” “You blacked out” “… why?” “I don’t know. You saw my missing leg and I said how I lost it. Maybe that was a little bit too shocking for you?”

With Toothless right behind him Hiccup pushed the door to his room open while Jack started to tremble in his arms.

“You lost your leg…”, Hiccup never thought that it was possible for the other boys’ skin to be even paler than it already was but the thought of his missing limb seemed to drain even the slightest bit of color from Jacks’ face “… while I was gone…”

The Viking sighed and laid him onto his bed before sitting down on the edge of it “That’s one of the things that happened while you were gone”

Jack tried to cover his face with his hands but just ended up wincing in pain once he moved his right arm.

“Keep it still and let me take a look” carefully Hiccup pushed the sleeve all the way up to Jacks’ shoulder, or rather as far as the bunching up textile allowed it. The view of the big dark bruise and the slight swelling reminded him of one of his own injuries, from about two years ago “It looks like a fracture… You need to keep it still and cool”

Jack gave him a halfhearted smile and just placed his left hand on the bruise “If that’s all…” “I can hardly imagine a Jack Frost holding still for more than five minutes” Hiccups’ small smile slowly faded when Jack just let his head fall back onto the pillow and closed his eyes without another word.

The Viking exchanged a worried look with his dragon who was sitting next to the bed before he got up “I’ll go get you something to ease the pain”

“No!” Jack immediately opened his eyes again and tried to sit up without moving his arm to much “No… I want to explain before everything…” “I just told you not to move” “You also just said that you didn’t believe I could sit still”

Shaking his head Hiccup grabbed a scarf that was laying on his desk. After turning the scarf into a sling to support Jacks’ arm he helped him sit up and lean against the headboard. “So, you’re going to explain why you left?” His first answer was a silent chuckle and tired look from the Winter Spirit. Then “To explain that I’ll have to go back a fair amount of years… How much time do you have?” “How much do you need?” “I… want you to understand everything. I had no idea how to explain it to you back in the forest and it’s probably not going to be a great explanation now… You’re basically gonna get a few hundred years of my life story”

“What?”, Hiccup looked back at Toothless who looked just as confused as he was “Few _hundred_ years?”

Jack nodded and gave him a sad smile “I’m immortal, Hic”

The next two to three hours dragon and rider listened to Jack telling them about his life.

The day at the pond where he saved his sister and drowned, how he became Jack Frost, the following 300 years of loneliness and struggling to be seen.

How the Man in the Moon decided he should be a Guardian and help the others to defeat the Boogeyman. Of course, Jack had to explain who the others were.

The following years when more and more children finally believed in him and how he always tried his best to bring fun to as many of them as possible.

How the world started changing and how he met his first close mortal friend, staying by her side for the rest of her life. How much it hurt to see her die… His dissent to tell the other Guardians why he was acting unusual, bottling up his grief.

How he met his second friend, foolishly believing spending time with her was easing the pain forever. Making the first pendant. Him realizing that it would just end like the last time and that he was a giant idiot for thinking otherwise. How he left her behind without saying goodbye. The pain and guilt he felt and was still feeling when he discovered that she had died way too soon.

How he broke down and told Toothiana everything that had happened and promising her and himself to never get attached to another mortal.

Finally, he got to the first time he saw Hiccup, trying to fit in and meet his fathers’ expectations. Why he decided to break his own promise after keeping it for such a long time and when he realized that he wouldn’t be able to take another heartbreak.

Why he didn’t want to leave without making sure that there was someone to keep Hiccup safe, Toothless and Astrid. Because he didn’t want to repeat even more of his mistakes…

And of course… Why he came back after five years. That people were dying without any visible cause and that he was afraid that Hiccup might’ve died as well…

He started crying while talking about his friends and Hiccup sat down beside him to carefully put his arm around him. At the end all the exhaustion from the past weeks and months caught up with him and he fell asleep with his head on the Vikings’ shoulder after muttering another apology “I’m sorry… I… never meant to… intrude your life again…”

Toothless looked from the passed-out spirit to his rider who tried to process everything he had just heard. It was a lot… too much in fact. The Night Fury nudged his arm with an encouraging sound leading Hiccup to leave the Guardian under his dragons’ care and visit the only person he would be able to talk to about all of this.

Frowning, Astrid watched Hiccup pacing through the snow behind her house. Behind her Stormfly eyed the dragon trainer with a questioning look while still enjoying her breakfast.

“So, you just forgave him leaving you behind because he is a pitiful emotional mess?”

“I never said that”, the young Viking came to a halt, still looking torn between anger and understanding “I finally know the reason, but I don’t know…”

“If it’s an acceptable one?”, Astrid crossed her arms and scoffed “I can hardly think of a reason that would be”

“You didn’t hear everything I just heard…”

“Then explain it to me instead of just throwing at my face that Toothless chased down Jack and that he’s an emotional wreck”

Hiccup closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to summarize more than six hundred years in a way that didn’t leave anything important out.

“Okay… First-“ “I was right and Jack is immortal?”

At the sight of Astrids’ raised eyebrow, he sighed heavily, thinking back to their first ever conversation about all of what had happened while he was training Toothless “Yes. Yes, you were right. Happy?”

“Not really” the blond Viking actually looked sad, but she beckoned him to continue.

After taking a deep breath Hiccup told his friend everything that he deemed necessary to understand Jacks’ decision to leave. Three hundred years of loneliness and struggle, finally being seen, finding a caring friend and staying with her for the remainder of her life, never talking to anyone about it. As Hiccup told her about the redhaired girl Astrid cocked her head to the side, obviously seeing the parallels to how Hiccup met and was left by the winter spirit. 

“And then he went back and found out that she died in her late twenties. He didn’t tell me how she died but he blames himself for it. Thinks that he could’ve saved her from whatever she died from”

“And Toothless and I were deemed strong enough to protect you from an early death?” she sounded slightly amused.

“Apparently” Hiccup couldn’t hold back a small smile.

But Astrids’ next question wiped the smile from his face again “So, what are you going to do now?”

“Uhm… Let him stay in my room till his arm is all healed up. Probably gotta tell my dad… but-“, he was interrupted by Astrid punching his arm “Ow. What was that for?”

“You know what I mean. Or did you have a change of heart in the past five years?”, Hiccups’ face turning red was enough answer for her “You just judged someone for bottling up feelings, Hiccup”

“I didn’t judge him”

“But you saw how bad it is”, she jabbed her finger in his chest “So, you need to do something before he leaves again”

Visibly uncomfortable under her stern gaze Hiccup started scratching the back of his neck and looked at everything but Astrid “I can’t. After everything he told me it would just make matters worse… And I don’t want to lose him again. I’m fine with friendship, Astrid”

She took a step back “Remember the time you told me about your crush on me?”

“How am I supposed to forget that…? It’s probably one of the most embarrassing moments of my life” but he still had to smile thinking about the starry night in the snow covered cove. Of course, he only managed to talk about his confused feelings to Toothless, ways away from anyone else. Just that time the Night Fury decided to not alert his Rider when he saw Astrid approaching them.

It was an awkward confession to say the least. At the time Hiccup wasn’t even that sure about still being interested in Astrid in that way. He admired her, more for her skills as a Rider and Fighter than her looks, and he wouldn’t ever want to lose her as a friend but wanting to be more than friends… And his uncertainty had made many of their interactions prior to that night more and more uncomfortable and awkward.

“You didn’t embarrass yourself. You finally asked me, I said ‘No’ and we were able to leave the awkwardness behind”

“I remember a lot more than that”

“But you get my point?” Astrid looked at him expectantly and smiled once Hiccup finally nodded.

“You make it sound really easy, you know that?”

“I’m not trying to. I’m telling you to scratch together your twenty seconds of courage and get it off your chest. It’s not much more than a yes-or-no-question. And you already said you’d be fine with being just friends”

To Astrid it seemed like she finally convinced her friend but there was still a nagging question in Hiccups mind. What if the answer wouldn’t be ‘No’?

His room was considerably colder when he returned.

Jack wasn’t asleep anymore and was entertaining Toothless with little ice dragons soaring through the room, exploding into tiny snowflakes once the Night Fury got a hold of them.

Hiccup stopped and leaned against the doorframe, watching the spectacle for a few minutes. He almost forgot that Jack could do things like this.

“Having fun?”

“As much as you can have when you’re not allowed to get up”

“It can’t be that bad”, Hiccup watched as a new dragon took shape on Jacks’ open palm “You’re smiling after all”

The whitehaired Spirit chuckled as the tiny dragon took off to fly across the room “How could I not. The dragon that tried to kill me a few hours ago is acting like a playful puppy”

Smiling Hiccup shook his head. “I gotta interrupt you though. Unless Toothless wants his breakfast getting stolen by the Terrible Terrors” The black dragons’ ears perked up and he was out of the room as soon as Hiccup gestured to downstairs, where he left the basket full of fish.

The remaining two dragons turned into rains of snow while Hiccup sat down on his bed “Feeling better?”

“Yeah… Sorry for just dumping everything on you”, Jack started rubbing his arm “I couldn’t come up with anything else”

“It’s fine. It is a lot to take in, but I understand”

“You do?” Jack sounded honestly surprised that telling Hiccup almost his entire life story had worked as an explanation.

“Not everything”, the Viking had to admit “but enough”

“… Did you tell Astrid?”

Hiccup felt himself blush and thinking that it probably wasn’t the most appropriate thing to immediately run to someone else to tell them what kind of emotional struggles Jack was going through. “Well… She probably would’ve thrown something pretty sharp at you if I didn’t explain it to her. I’m sorry, I should’ve asked you first”

“You probably should’ve. You owe me something for that” his amusement was hard to miss, and Hiccup couldn’t help but wonder how Jack managed to act like this after everything he had told him. Then again, he never seemed bothered by anything five years ago…

“I’d like to think we’re even now”

“Maybe. But…”, the slight chill that always seemed to surround the Winter Spirit grew significantly colder “Would you… How did you lose your leg?”

The younger teen looked down at his prosthetic and sighed “Only if you promise to not pass out again”

Jack forced a weak laugh “Come on. It happened once”

“And ’once’ is one time to much”, Hiccup pulled his legs up on the bed to sit cross-legged, noticing how Jack flinched when he was able to see his leg again “You sure you want to hear it?”

“I’d rather know the actual story than live with my mind making up thousands of ‘em that aren’t true. It’s way worse…”

The auburn-haired nodded “Okay. You said you left when Astrid and I were flying with Toothless?” Jack just nodded without a word and Hiccup continued “Well while we were flying, we got caught up in a swarm of dragons and ended up in the nest. It’s a massive Volcano and inside we saw that all the food that was stolen from the village got thrown into a giant pit. One dragon didn’t bring enough food and it got eaten by the biggest dragon I’ve ever seen. And at that point we could only see its head coming out of the fog and smoke that was filling the pit so we could only guess how big it was in its entirety. Toothless got us out of there but we couldn’t tell my dad…” Hiccup stopped and then gestured to the door “I would’ve needed to tell him about Toothless and I just couldn’t let anything happen to him”

“Then… What did you do?”

“I wanted to show everyone that there was no reason to be afraid of the dragons and kill them. When I was in the arena… I tried to tame the Nightmare instead of killing it. And I would’ve been able to if it didn’t get startled-“

“It was because of your dad, wasn’t it?” but the young Viking just skipped right over Jacks question.

“Astrid managed to get trough the gate and tried to distract the dragon and then my dad opened the gate to get both Astrid and me out of there, but my way was cut off. Toothless suddenly showed up… He heard me from across the island and managed to get out of the cove on his own and into the arena to save me…”, Hiccup trailed of and raked his finger through his hair “But he didn’t leave and got captured. When I tried to talk to my dad afterwards, I slipped up and told him about the nest. And that only a dragon was able to find it”

Jack could easily see where this was going but he kept silent this time. Hiccup didn’t interrupt him, so it was only fair to do the same now…

“They all left with Toothless to destroy the nest. I tried to tell my father about the giant dragon, the Red Death, but he didn’t want to listen. All I could do was watch as the ships got out of sight”, a small smile tugged at his lips “And then Astrid came and helped me realize what I needed to do. While I went to the arena where the other dragons where still locked up, she rallied up the others and they all came. Snotlout, Ruff and Tuff and Fishlegs. They were all willing to try and I showed them how to ride the dragons. It was impressive how well they got along and still do. Stormfly is the Nadder from the arena and she accepted Astrid even though she got hit by a shield and threatened multiple times”

The whitehaired Spirit had to smile at the thought of the teens taming and bonding with the dragons they were trained to hate and kill in such a short amount of time.

“We all flew to the nest, Astrid and me together on Stormfly. When we got there… the Red Death was outside the Volcano and we could finally see how gigantic it truly was. It’s pretty hard to find a comparison… It was crushing catapults with one foot, it would’ve probably been able to swallow this house whole without much effort. There was no chance to defeat it with normal means”, Hiccup looked up at Jack who seemed to have trouble picturing a dragon of that size “Toothless was still in chains on one of the boats and of course one of the first things that beast did was setting them all on fire. The others tried to distract it while Astrid dropped me off. Trying to figure out how many shots it had, finding the blind spot. Wasn’t easy for anybody. I was busy with trying to free Toothless, so I don’t know much about what happened above us. Then the ships got hit by something and threw us both into the water. I couldn’t get him free and almost drowned…”, again Hiccup had to smile at the memory “but my dad saved me. He even jumped back in and freed Toothless who saved him from drowning. When we were finally able to join the fight most of the others were on the ground. The twins just got Snotlout off the Red Deaths’ head and we were barely able to save Astrid and Stormfly from getting eaten”

After Hiccup fell silent, remembering how he almost led one of his friends to her death, Jack dared to ask “Did… you have a plan how to deal with… that thing?”

The Viking had to laugh “If you want to call it that. We managed to get it to follow us, to fly up into the clouds where Toothless was almost invisible and could attack its wings. But then it started to spit fire and it was a literal inferno. You know how fast Toothless is and even he only managed to barely avoid getting hit. His tailfin got caught in the flames though. Didn’t have much time after that. We dove down towards the ground and managed to hit it in the perfect moment, igniting its fire inside its body. It tried to spread its wings to slow down but they were to damaged and it smashed into the ground, literally exploding” Hiccup started to tug on one of his little braids “Toothless tried to get away from the flames, back up, but we completely lost his tailfin at that point and couldn’t avoid getting hit by that beasts’ club of tail. I don’t remember anything after that. I can only assume what happened and go off the things my dad and friends told me. Me falling down into the inferno, Toothless diving after me and protecting me with his wings and body from the fire. I should’ve been dead, but Toothless saved my life”

It was silent for a while.

“All that happened right after I left?”

Hiccup nodded “Yes. But it didn’t happen because you left and even if you didn’t leave, I doubt you could’ve done something. Toothless was the only one who had the chance and ability to save me”

“Maybe you wouldn’t have fought that thing if-“

“No”, the young Viking put a hand on Jacks shoulder “There are no ‘if’s. The dragons don’t have to steal food anymore and we were able to proof that we can fight and live alongside each other. I can’t think of anything else that could’ve achieved what we have today. Having Toothless with me every day, seeing my friends with their dragons and every other change that has happened is more than worth losing part of my leg”

Toothless, who had just returned from downstairs, sat down beside the bed and nodded in agreement. He seemed to feel the same about the loss of his tailfin.

Jack looked at the pair in silence.

He had been scared that something might happen to Hiccup if he left him alone, like the last time he did so. Now he knew that and what happened, but his friend was fine. Hiccup came close to dying but the experience just made him stronger and bettered his life. The life of his village and all the dragons in the vicinity. The Winter Spirit smiled. “You two are amazing”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of talking in this chapter...
> 
> When I watched the end of the first Httyd movie and then the second movie I was kind of surprised that Hiccup was relatively chill about loosing part of his leg (Personally I would freak out a bit more and be kind of sad but even in Riders of Berk he doesn't seem that bothered by it). So this is my interpretation of why.
> 
> Also I know that Jack is a spirit and already dead but I don't like characters that are considered immortal AND invincible. That's just to much and just has to lead to some very careless behavior because he won't get hurt anyway. So why bother with being careful? (I'd also like to state that I didn't read the books so most of my knowledge about Jack Frost is only from the movie and from the wiki. I'm planning on reading them though)


	4. Chapter 4

“Sometimes I just can’t believe you…”, Astrid pinched the bridge of her nose and then continued to glare at Hiccup “It’s been six days”

“I can count, Astrid…” Hiccup finished saddling Toothless and turned around to face his annoyed friend who already sat on her dragon.

“And you know all the things that happened in these few days. You even told your dad and the others about Jack and they met him”

“That’s something entirely different and besides”, Hiccup mounted Toothless and clicked his prosthetic into place “How should I know that I didn’t have as much time as…”

“It would’ve been an easy guess that a Spirit most likely doesn’t need as much time to heal as you or me and he told you he didn’t plan to stay long. That he is needed somewhere else”

“Do you want to scold me all day or actually do something productive?”

“I’m sorry if helping a friend is not productive enough for your taste”

“You know exactly what I mean, Astrid… Let’s just go”

Astrid looked down at him and then in the direction Jack had taken just a few minutes ago. “Yeah. Let’s go” With that she and Stormfly took off, flying after the Winter Spirit.

Hiccup blinked perplexed before he and Toothless gave chase “What are you doing?!”

“What do you think?!” Astrid shouted over her shoulder.

“Oh no, you wouldn’t…” it was impossible for Astrid to hear his mumbling. He wasn’t able to stop her now, all he could do was hoping she would either give up or…

It was a surprisingly short flight. Just a few miles from Berk they spotted Jack on a small island, sitting on a rock and apparently waiting for them.

“It’s great that you guys already miss me, but I promised that I’ll come back as soon as I can”

“We heard you”, the blonde Viking jumped onto the rocky beach as soon as Stormfly landed “And I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt”

Hiccup was slightly confused “Why are you just sitting here, Jack?”

“Riding the wind has some benefits. Like sometimes getting a hint that someone’s following you”, he slid off the rock and walked the short distance to the two the Riders and dragons “And you told me you wanted to map the islands east of Berk”

“Well, we kinda-“ “He forgot to tell you something”, Astrid completely ignored the angry glare from her friends’ green eyes and just smiled “Something important. We give you some space for that” Together with her dragon she started to stroll down the beach. Hiccup continued to glare at her until Toothless nudged his arm and he turned around.

Jack looked at him expectantly, one hand buried in the pocket of his hoodie.

“I…” Hiccup started tugging on one of his braids. Now he truly understood how Jack felt back in the woods. Pressured into talking without knowing how to explain himself. Toothless looked up at his Rider and then tugged his arm towards the small shoulder bag that was attached to his saddle, reminding his friend that he forgot something else. “Oh right!”, quickly the young Viking took the bag and held it out for Jack to take “You said you keep losing track of time and where you’ve already been. I thought this might help” Jack took the bag and opened it while Hiccup continued to explain “It’s a notebook and a pen. Basically the same I use for mapping”

Hiccup was rewarded with a bright smile. “Thank you. I’m sure it’ll help. As long as I don’t forget to write things down… But this wasn’t what Astrid meant, was it?”

The auburn-haired teen flinched. Somehow, he thought he was off the hook. Astrid would maybe believe that he followed her advice, or demand at this point, if Jack would leave now. They talked ab bit after all, and she was out of sight and probably out of earshot… Toothless nudging him towards Jack put a stop to his thoughts. When even his dragon thought he couldn’t wait any longer… He heard Jack laugh at how Toothless pushed around his best friend. Biting his lip, he focused his eyes on the bright ice blue before him “Sorry for dumping this on you”

“Wha-“ the Winter Spirit didn’t get the chance to finish, Hiccup grabbed the collar of his Hoodie and clumsily smashed their lips together. Calling it a kiss would be giving Hiccup a bit too much credit. The teen pulled back after a few seconds, keeping Jack close enough to feel his cool breath against his skin. Blue eyes were wide with confusion and surprise and… was that a snowflake pattern?

“Uh… H-Hiccup?”

Jacks’ voice and his hands tugging at his wrists snapped him out of his trance and he instantly let go and looked away “S-sorry… I didn’t know how to tell you…”

“I guess we are even in that department then…”

Hiccup mentally slapped himself for his stupidity. Toothless caught his gaze and nodded towards Jack. This was way worse than his talk with Astrid…

“Hiccup. You do know _what_ you just kissed?”, the uncertainty and… worry in the Spirits’ voice and the question itself was not what he expected.

“I know”

“Then why did you just do that…? I’m like 600 years too old for you”

“Because I don’t care!”, a small smile tugged at his lips “I fell in love with the person that believed in me so much when I hardly believed in myself. The one who helped me, cheered me up when I was down and really listened to me when I was talking. The idiot who was brave and stupid enough to continuously provoke a Night Fury to ‘lighten the mood’. I couldn’t care less about how old you look or actually are”

“… Thanks…?”

“But… It doesn’t have to matter…” if there ever was a more obvious lie…

“Do you _want_ me to reject you and just be friends?”, Jack leaned against his staff, expression unreadable “I can’t do that”

“’Want’ is the last word I would use…” Now Hiccup felt anxious. There were now only two possible outcomes to this… and one was losing his friend, for good this time. “The only thing I want now… is an answer”

The only sounds that followed were waves hitting rocks and wind rustling through trees. For a painfully long time.

Finally, Jack gave him an apologetic smile “Like I said… I can’t do that. _Now_ ”

“Now?” that should’ve been something to expect…

“I have to deal with an angry Fairy and the whole ‘world might end’-situation. And this…”, he poked the Vikings’ chest, right where his heart was “is too important to me to damage it with a rash answer”

Astrid had been sitting at the shore, just watching the horizon and petting her dragon who had dozed of in the last few minutes.

When Toothless landed next to her she looked at his Rider expectantly “And?”

Hiccup just smiled “Get up. We have some time to kill”

Tooths’ palace was busy like always. Tiny fairies carrying teeth and coins swarming around and Toothiana in the middle of everything, giving directions and occasionally pausing to listen to one or two fairies reporting new happenings around the globe.

At first the only one who acknowledged Jacks’ arrival was Baby Tooth. After depositing the tooth, she just brought in, the Toothfairy flew over to the Spirit and greeted him with cheerful chirping.

“Hey, Baby Tooth. Long time no see”

The small fairy pouted, and her tone sounded scolding.

Jack raised his hands in a defensive manner “I didn’t mean too. Lost track of time and then things just happened…”

When Toothiana still didn’t look at him he sighed “She’s angry at me, isn’t she?”

Baby Tooth shrugged helplessly.

“Not that I don’t deserve it…”

After a while of talking Baby Tooth went back to work and Jack sat on the ground a few feet behind Toothiana and waited. She knew he was here, and he didn’t think that interrupting her work would help him right now. So, he sat there, creating frost patterns on the floor and thinking about the last days. Especially about the things Hiccup told him just a few hours ago.

“Are you planning to sit there all day?”

“Just until you have time to talk”

It had been almost three hours when Tooth finally paused and turned around “Sometimes I feel like a lot of our conversations are pointless”

“You know that’s not true”

“Well, we talked about why you shouldn’t go to Berk and the next thing you did was going to Berk”, Tooth crossed her arms “That surely feels like we both wasted our time”

Jack looked down at his hands and started fidgeting with his staff “I know… I just wanted to see if he was okay. I didn’t intend to talk and stay”

“You could’ve just asked Sandy or me! We could’ve told you that he is completely fine”

“I just needed to see for myself… Thought the nightmares would stop when I see that there’s at least one thing I didn’t mess up”

When he looked up Tooth was kneeling in front of him, more worry than anger in her purple eyes “You didn’t tell me anything about nightmares”

“Because there is no need to. They… they’re just annoying and keep me from sleeping long…”

Tooth shook her head “You’re such a bad liar”

“… Fine. They’re awful and make me feel guilty to the point that it hurts…”, he stopped fidgeting and grabbed his staff tighter “They show me what I had, how I threw it away and all the things that might’ve happened. Everything I could’ve helped her with…”

“You have nothing to blame yourself, Jack”

“But a bunch of things to regret”, he shook his head “But I’m not here for that… I just wanted to apologize, Tooth”

The fairy tilted her head and crossed her arms “I’ll accept that… if you tell me what else is bothering you. And don’t even try to deny it, you’re bad at it, remember?”

He had to laugh at that “I’ve been told”

Tooth just smiled and waited. She was the only one of the Guardians who knew about everything. If he could talk to anyone about this… “Hiccup told me he loves me. After I just left him behind… And I don’t know what to think about it”

“That’s… not what I expected” the fairy rested her chin on her folded hands, a thoughtful look on her face.

“Me neither”

“What did you say?”

“There wasn’t much I could say… I told him that I can’t give him an answer now and that I would come back as soon as I can”

Tooth frowned “So you’re planning on going back?”

The Spirit chuckled “How am I supposed to stay away now?”

“Like you did the last five years”, she sighed “I know I can’t tell you what to do, Jack… but you are my friend and I’d hate to see you like… that ever again”

“Believe me… I don’t want to feel like that again but it’s too late now”, Jack looked at the bag sitting beside him “Hiccup loves me… and I have to give him an answer”

Gently smiling the Toothfairy shook her head. There wasn’t any way to keep him from doing this. “Do you need help with finding your answer?”

“I think I can handle that myself” His confident smile wouldn’t last very long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I once read a short story on Deviantart where the Vikings were all able to see Jack.  
> And the reason for that is that 'Jack Frost' is another Name for 'Jokul Frosti'. Which is connected to Norse mythology.  
> I read up on it and found this post about the origins of Jack Frost which said that there actually isn't a Jokul Frosti but two frost giants called Jokul and Frosti. So it's a name confusion but I didn't want to complicate things here... For the Vikings Jokul Frosti is connected to winter (He's not the god of winter) You can read the post it if you want http://forum.schoolofdragons.com/content/myths-and-legends-origns-jack-frost
> 
> Please don't hate me for this (Kind of) lazy reason why everyone can see Jack.


	5. Chapter 5

It had been two months.

At least that was what the tally marks in the notebook said.

Jack closed the book after writing down where he had been in the past 24 hours and how much nothing he found there. Well, nothing that would help with the ‘world might end’-situation. He had run across some children playing by a lake and stuck around till it was time for them to head home. No matter what was going on in the world, he was still the Guardian of Fun. Bringing joy to the children was his job and playing with them and making sure they got home safely made him feel a lot better about the overall situation.

Of course, Hiccup was still on his mind, in addition to everything else.

He hadn’t managed to figure out a satisfying answer… but he didn’t want to go back to Tooth to ask for her help after denying it so confidently.

After putting the notebook back in his bag, he just stayed, sitting on a tree branch, his back leaned against the trunk, and waited for the sun to rise.

Finding an answer for Hiccup wasn’t easy at all…

If it was just a simple Yes-or-no it wouldn’t take him long. Not at all. He was more than 600 years old, he knew what it felt like to have a crush on someone or be in love with them. It would be quite sad if he wouldn’t be able to recognize that feeling… It was the damn reason he had left five years ago. Having to remember the loss of people who had _only_ been his friends was already painful, love would be so much worse. Aside from all of that it had been obvious to him that Hiccup wouldn’t feel the same, since he had told him about his crush on Astrid. Which was another reason why he was relieved to see Astrid fly with him on Toothless. He had really hoped that the two of them would become a couple and be happy. Just like Hiccup deserved.

Jack sighed and dragged a hand over his face. Apparently, he had been wrong. About most things.

That didn’t change much for him though… He did not want Hiccup or him, go through the horrible situation of one of them getting older and eventually die while the other just stayed the same forever and just had to move on somehow… That was why he had left and why he tried to push these feelings out of his head and into a deep pond to freeze them in there. It was a quite morbid metaphor for him to use. Since he drowned in a frozen over pond. But that was what he had hoped would happen. That the feelings would just die down or get drowned out by other things. He had managed to do that more than 500 years ago too, so why shouldn’t it work now?

Cause Hiccup had decided to shatter and melt every single layer of ice and snow Jack had tried to cover his feelings up with. Cause Hiccup actually loved him back and wasn’t just overly possessive like...

…because he was still Hiccup. Brave, smart, kind… Jack seriously questioned how the Viking was still single and how he hadn’t kissed anyone yet.

As the first rays of the sun fell on the snow-covered trees, turning every frosted over spot into a sea of tiny sparkling stars, the slight breeze carried a familiar sound towards him.

Singing.

Jack got up, leaned forward to look around the thick tree trunk in the direction of the voice and smiled “Haven’t heard that in a long time…”

While he was walking through the forest towards the familiar voice, the sun was slowly rising, and it started to snow. Jack stopped at the edge of a clearing and held his hand out to catch one of the snowflakes. It was glistening in the light, a tiny piece of fragile art. There were few Winter Spirits who put actual work into making these kinds of snowflakes.

And one of them was right in front of him.

Dancing around a small pond in the middle of the clearing, singing and raising the fallen snow into beautiful ice sculptures. Animals, People, Flowers.

Jack had heard the stories the humans told about these ‘Gardens of Ice’. If you came across one you were in the presence of the Snow Queen. Destroying one of the sculptures would result in many years filled with misfortunate. People just always found something to blame their problems on, didn’t they?

The Guardian leaned against a tree and watched the fair-haired woman dance and sing for a few minutes. He didn’t want to interrupt her.

“Thank you for your patience”

“Thank you for the performance” Jack applauded her with a huge grin on his face while she gave him a playful bow and a smile.

The whole clearing was now bathed in sunlight. Light was reflecting off the detailed feathers of a Hawks’ spread out wings. The Guardian wandered in awe between the sculptures while the snowflakes were still dancing through the air “As impressive as ever, Elsa”

“I’d like to think that I’ve gotten a bit better in the last two years” she graced the head of a swan sculpture with her fingertips.

“Has it already been two years?”

“Is my younger brother this bad at keeping track of time?”

“I’m good enough at it to know that I’m not the _younger_ brother” Jack had to grin at their usual banter.

Elsa put her hand, that was not holding her pale staff, at her hips and raised one eyebrow “Do I need to remind you that I died at age 21?”

“Do I need to remind _you_ ”, Jack mimicked her pose “how many years I was already dead back then?”

The Spirits looked at each other seriously for a few moments before they both burst out laughing.

“When is that ever getting old?”

Elsas’ laughter slowly died down to a giggle “It hasn’t in 400 years. I doubt it will ever get old at this point”

Jack scooped some snow off the ground, turning it into a glowing snowball “Remember the first time?”

She raised her staff, bracing herself “The one where I was a bitch about it?”

“The one where we both were assholes about it”

“It took us almost 200 years to get passed it, so I won’t forget that one” laughing nonetheless she dodged his snowball and send a whole cascade of snow his way.

Jack ducked behind a bear sculpture, creating enough ammunition for a traditional snowball fight. His spirit-sister discarded her staff when she saw his being dropped to the ground.

Flowing ice-gown and frosted blue fabric sparkled in the sunlight as the two ran around the clearing, laughing, seeking cover behind the various sculptures and creating more snowballs. Why would age matter to immortal Spirits anyway?

A sudden and strong gust of wind made both of them freeze and look up to the grey clouds. The snowfall had stopped a while ago and the wind whirled up the fresh snow from the ground, the trees and Elsas’ sculptures.

“Is that…?”

“No”, Jack shook his head “It’s just the weather”

Elsa gave a relieved sigh and tugged a few strands of her platinum-blond hair behind her ear “Would be the last thing I want now”

“Well that ruined the mood…”

“Yes… But I wanted to do something else anyway” with that she took his hand and dragged him to the pond. As her shoe touched the water it froze over, creating a perfectly even surface.

“Ice skating?”

“Dancing”

Jack raised an eyebrow “You know I can’t dance?”

“Then it’s time you learn it”

“When am I ever gonna need to know this?” but he didn’t stop Elsa from dragging him across the pond. He wasn’t sure if the steps she tried to teach him were part of ‘official’ dances or if she came up with them herself. It was fun, nonetheless.

“So, what have you been up to?”

“The usual”

“Usual ‘Guardian’ or usual ‘Spirit’?”, Elsa followed one of the small ice-birds with her eyes. She was impressed at how lifelike they were. Her work, even if it _looked_ lifelike and was way sturdier than Jacks’, was most times unmoving. Like the horse sculpture she was sitting on right now.

“Mostly Guardian”, Jack was sitting on the ground and leaned his head back against the horses’ leg to look up at her “What about you?”

“That’s too vague of an answer to ask me back yet”

The teen rolled his eyes in pretended annoyance and quickly ducked away when she reached down to ruffle his hair.

“And something seems to bother you about the ‘Guardian’-part”

“I’m not-“

“But you also seem way more happy than last time. Did something happen?”, she looked at the bag that was sitting in the snow, particularly at the blazon on it “With Hiccup?”

“… How do you girls do that?”

Elsa pointed to the bag that Jack pulled to his side again.

“I could’ve had that for five years…”

“It looks way too new for that”

“My hoodie is more than 300 years old and doesn’t look like it”

Smiling Elsa shook her head “No avoiding the question, Jack”

“… I don’t really feel like bothering even more people with my problems”

“Jack…”, she slid of the horses’ back to sit beside him in the snow “ _You_ made _me_ bother you with my problems. Now _I’ll_ make _you_ bother me with your problems”

When Jack still didn’t talk and just stared at the bag in his hands, she squinted her eyes “And I might have a frozen heart, but I’d still like to think that I know a thing or two about love”

The resulting mad blush on Jacks face looked quite unhealthy considering how pale it usually was “I- That… is a blatant lie”

“So, I am right”

“Elsa, please…”, he dragged a hand over his face and glared at her, more uncertainty than anger in his eyes “I don’t even know…”

“’Don’t even know’ what?” her satisfied smile turned into a mixture of curiosity and worry.

Jack took a deep breath and closed his eyes. She wouldn’t let it go any time soon… “It’s complicated…”

The Snow Queen listened intently to his story. Why he decided to go check on Hiccup, how he ended up talking to him and what the Viking told him before he left again. Two months ago. “I couldn’t answer… and I still can’t. He’s gonna grow old and die and I’m just going to stay like this forever. I don’t want to… but I can’t let him go anymore and… I don’t want to hurt him…”

“Well…” Elsa looked at him, sitting with his legs pulled to his chest and forehead resting on his knees, uncertain on what to say. Despite saying she knew some things about love… she was not speaking from experience. At least not good experience... “What was the first thing you thought when he kissed you?”

“That… he was pretty bad at it”

“… How would you even know? You’ve got nothing to compare”

“You don’t know everything about me”

“… Did you also lose your virginity while I wasn’t looking?”

“You don’t _need_ to know everything” She couldn’t see his face, but she knew it was as red as it could be.

“I would feel a lot better if I did”

“… Shut up before I punch you…”

“Alright… Then back to the question at hand” she looked up at the grey sky, deep in thought. She couldn’t help but think ‘What would Anna say?’. Finally, she clapped her hands together, determination in her blue eyes “I’m probably going to sound a lot like my sister now”

Jack raised his head to look at her again “I never met her so I can’t tell”

“You’re too fixated on the bad memories”, she jumped to her feet, twirling on the spot with her arms raised “You need to-“

“I really don’t need a musical number now” Jack interrupted her quickly when he heard her singing voice take over.

“Fine…” Elsa stood still for a moment before picking up her staff. With another twirl the snow around her rose, creating a vortex and completely hiding her from Jacks’ view.

The Guardian shielded his eyes with one arm from the whirling snow “What are you do-“ the rest of his question got stuck in his throat when the snow settled back onto the ground revealing Elsa and two new sculptures. Their faces where slightly off due to the fact that the Snow Queen never met his friends personally, but it was very clear who they were supposed to be.

One was a grown woman, her long braided hair almost reached the ground, there was a bright smile on her face and her arms were offering a gentle hug.

The other one was a teenage girl with wild curls, grinning and holding bow and arrow.

“This is what you should remember”, Elsa rested her hands on the heads of her sculptures “All the time you spend together. The good memories, not how it ended” Jacks’ eyes wandered back and forth between her and the sculptures. He looked like he was about to cry. That made Elsa feel a little bit less confident about her speech. A song would’ve probably been worse though… “I can’t tell you that you didn’t mess up anything… since you clearly did”

“Yeah… Thanks”

“But we were human, Jack”, she kneeled in front of him “And humans aren’t perfect, so neither are we. Maybe there’s no end for us… but that only means there’s none for them either. They’ll always live on. Right here”

The Guardian looked down at Elsas’ hand on his chest. “Wow… That was the kitschiest thing you’ve ever said…”

She had to laugh at that “Worse than when I called you ‘Snowflake’?”

“Way worse…”, after wiping a few tears away he pulled her into a hug and laid his head on her shoulder “Did I ever tell you that you make great sister?”

“Not as often as I deserve it”

“… Don’t ruin the moment”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always found the idea that Jack is the one and only bringer of winter a little bit... ridiculous.  
> He can't be at multiple places at the same time.  
> And I also think that if Jack had full control over all things winter all over the world... people wouldn't die


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.... I wrote down more notes about this story and I noticed that there's a lot of death in my plot.  
> So I added the 'Major character death'  
> Enjoy

It had been two months.

And three days.

And approximately seven hours.

No. He wasn’t impatient. Impatient people would count the minutes too. And he didn’t do that. If he did the 34 minutes would just make him feel more anxious.

Astrid had just raised an eyebrow at him when he reassured her that he wasn’t nervous about this at all. The twins and Snotlout were continuously making fun of him but at this point he didn’t even react to it anymore. He tried to distract himself by mapping Berks surroundings, working on the Book of Dragons with Fishlegs, racing Astrid and Stormfly and by training the new Riders.

He was busy.

But not busy enough to avoid thinking about Jack.

When would ‘as soon as I can’ be?

As far as he understood ‘Guardian of Fun’ was a 24/7 job and if he had to resolve the whole ‘world might end’-situation first… that could take years.

A slap from Toothless’ ear snapped him out of his gloomy thoughts.

Hiccup shook his head and looked down. There was still nothing but water and fog beneath them. “Sorry Buddy… I zoned out” Going for a flight to clear his head wasn’t working that well. “Maybe we should go back. It’s getting dark and it looks like the weather is going to get bad soon”

Toothless nodded and Hiccup adjusted his tailfin to turn and fly back. That was when the fog lifted, and an island came into view. It was fairly big, with pine woods, a few rocky hills, high cliffs and one visible sandy beach. Not enough to lead the Viking to go to investigate it but there was also a beached ship on the shore.

The Night Fury turned his head to look at his Rider before they turned again to land on the cliff above the beach and ship.

Hiccup pulled out a small telescope to confirm his suspicion “Trappers…” But there seemed to be nobody around and the ship was in very bad shape. “Let’s go check it out, Buddy”

Carefully the two descended down to the beach towards the ship. As they got closer the sound of rattling chains and claws on wood became audible.

Toothless jumped up on the deck and checked for any dangers while Hiccup climbed over the railing behind him. The ship was slightly tilted, mast completely broken off and one of the metal grates was bend, broken and the metal looked molten. After peeking inside and discovering that there were no dragons left there, they moved on to the second one. This part of the ship was in the water and the grate was almost completely covered up by the fallen sail. After pulling it aside they could finally see the source of the rattling and scraping. A chained Gronckle.

Getting rid of the grate wasn’t a difficult task for Toothless.

While his friend climbed inside to calm down and free the other dragon the Night Fury kept watch. There had been people on this ship… where were they now? The air was fresh with the smell of pine trees and the sea. There was Hiccups’ scent and the ones of other dragons and humans, some fresher than others. Toothless walked over to the railing and looked towards the forest. There were tracks leading from the beach to the tree line. Dragon and human.

He turned his head when the Gronckle emerged from the belly of the ship, Hiccup close behind him. “You’ll be alright now. Rest up somewhere safe” Toothless watched as the yellow dragon gave a Goodbye-roar before flying off towards the cliffs.

After taking another close look around the ship dragon and Rider jumped back down onto the beach to take a closer look at the tracks in the sand. “Nadder” Hiccup inspected one of the clearer footprints. Toothless sniffed on one that was closer to the forest. “It’s injured” the Viking looked from the bloodied sand up to the treetops. He didn’t want to leave this dragon behind when it was hurt and being hunted but the forest was so thick that they wouldn’t be able to see it from above. The Night Fury looked at him expectantly and he took a deep breath. Astrid would probably kill him for this. “Come on. Let’s find it”

As Hiccup and Toothless entered the forest on foot the wind was picking up and some stray snowflakes fell from the darkening sky.

“I don’t think we should get near it…”

“You also thought that flying wasn’t a good idea”

“Because I could’ve taken us to Berk way faster”, Elsa peeked around the tree she was hiding behind “And that is something completely different”

“She’s injured, Elsa”, Jack pointed at the blood covering the light-blue scales on the Nadders’ leg “We can’t just leave her here”

“How do you even know it’s a ‘she’?”

The Guardian didn’t answer her. He tried to do what he saw Hiccup do five years ago. With quite a few adjustments… He leaned his staff with his bag against the nearest tree, not sure if the dragon would even consider it a weapon but he wanted to look as harmless as possible.

More snow started to paint their surroundings white, flakes bigger and heavier, and the Nadder pressed her body against the rock wall behind her to shield herself as much as possible from the cold wind. Maybe it was because she was hurt and scared. Could dragons feel the cold like humans did?

Elsa stayed behind her tree and watched tensely how her little brother slowly approached the big reptile.

“Hey, Girl”, he held both his hands out to show that he didn’t have anything else on him that could potentially cause her harm “I don’t want to hurt you”

The Nadder squinted her yellow eyes and the spikes on her tail shot up, ready to be thrown at any attacker.

Jack stopped dead in his tracks. He had no desire to get hit by one of those… but he had to get the dragon somewhere safe, preferably Berk, so someone could take a look at her leg. “Wh-whoa. You really don’t need those… I just want to take you to my friend so your leg can be treated”

“It’s not like we could just jump to Berk and get Hiccup over here…” Elsa mumbled. She was getting nervous and frustrated about this. Jack said that this was a Deadly Nadder. It even had the word ‘Deadly’ in its name. It would most likely survive the little while it would take to get the Dragon Trainer over here. Or someone else who had more experience with wild and injured dragons. Even if the sun was going down now. 

Rustling and movement in the light underbrush caught her attention. It was about ten feet to her left and- “Get down!” the perfect angle to throw an axe at the dragon and Jack.

Snow from the ground and air shot towards the group of bulky men, following the directions from Elsas’ staff, and threw three of them against the nearest trees. They didn’t look like they would get up anytime soon.

The last one didn’t even seem to notice the absence of his fellow Vikings, at least Elsa thought they were Vikings, and continued running into the large cloud of snow that was completely enveloping the spot where she last saw Jack and the Nadder. She wasn’t responsible for the cloud and she couldn’t see through it. A loud battle cry and the screech of the Nadder sounded muffled.

“Jack?!”

“I’m fine”

The snow slowly settled down again revealing the dragon, Spirit and Viking. The last one was pinned to a tree by his clothes and Nadder-spikes as well as bound to it with the rope and iron ball contraption he had been carrying. Jack was also standing a lot closer to the dragon than just a few moments before.

“What happened in the two seconds I couldn’t see you?!”

Jack looked up at the Nadder and then at the broken-down ice wall between them and the direction from where they were attacked “I guess we helped each other a bit”

“That is not really a satisfying answer but… Just take this and let’s leave” she took his staff and threw it in his direction while looking around for any other surprise attacks.

The Guardian didn’t even look when he caught his staff with one hand. He carefully petted the Nadders’ dark-blue neck. “You think you can fly? I can probably keep you in the air but I don’t-“

A screech from far away, full of anger and frustration, interrupted him.

Elsa jumped at the sudden sound “We need to go, Jack!”

“Wait. That’s…”, after another screech and roar Jack grabbed his staff tighter “That’s Toothless”

“Why would they be here?”

“I don’t know…”, Jack paused in midair and looked around “But they’re in trouble so we need to find them”

Elsa tried to look down to the forest ground, but the trees completely blocked her view “Maybe we should walk?” Being carried bridal-style several feet above the ground wasn’t her favorite way to travel anyway…

“You’re right… Let’s try to get down somewhere”

Luckily, they found a spot where some trees had fallen, creating a gap in the dense web of branches. There was barely any snow on the ground and due to the thick layer of spruce needles their steps were almost completely inaudible.

“We didn’t hear anything from Toothless…”

“I’m sure he’s fine, Jack. Maybe they got away from whatever trouble they were in and are hiding. Or just flew away. Or-“

An explosion accompanied by loud yelling and the sound of breaking wood cut her off.

“… Or they are over there”

“Or that” Elsa did her best to keep up with Jack but “Jack, wait. I can’t run in this dress”

“Then put some pants on. Lives are a bit more important than your fashion, aren’t they?”

“I can’t do that while running”

“Then catch up”

The Snow Queen stopped as Jack kept running towards the ruckus and looked down at her ice-gown and high heels. She should’ve changed her outfit the moment she decided to go to Berk. What would be practical now…? “Alright… Step by step. Fast” First she pointed her staff at her shoes, changing them to fur boots. Next was the bottom half of her gown. Simple pants would do. As an afterthought she added some leg guards. Same with her arms and shoulders. People were throwing axes around here… Lastly, she got rid of her cape. It probably was the ugliest outfit she ever created but Jack was right, lives came before fashion. “That’ll do for now”

It took a few steps to get used to flat shoes again but soon she was running after Jack, following the shouts and clangs from metal against metal.

Finally, she found her brother, crouching on the ground and hiding behind some trees.

“What are we dealing with now?”

“Look for yourself”

Carefully Elsa peeked around the trees onto a very recently created clearing. On the other side trees were still burning and the ground was littered with branches and big chunks of wood. Three big Vikings were busy trying to hold down the Night Fury while two others were fighting Hiccup. Well, one was fighting him, the other one just kept him from getting away and to Toothless.

“This is not a fair fight”

“Did you really expect to see one?”

“No…”, she kept a close eye on Hiccup, quite impressed and surprised by his flaming sword “What can we do?”

“We need to free Toothless”

“Hiccup is not your first priority?”

“He is”, Jack was chewing on his bottom lip “It’s not that easy… but I have a plan”

“I have really bad memories regarding the last time you had a plan”

“Thanks for the confidence-boost…”

Elsa shook her head “Sorry. What is your plan?”

“A lot of distractions”, he tightened the grip on his staff again “You got Marshmallow with you?”

She frowned “I literally can’t not have him with me. What do you want with him? He can’t fight Vikings”

“He doesn’t need to fight. Just cause some more havoc. Over there”, Jack pointed to the side of the clearing where Toothless was “After I turn up the snowstorm a bit, like I did back with the Nadder, so they can’t see anything and hopefully go after the noise Marshmallow makes”

“What do we do about Hiccup?” Elsa gave the young man another worried look. He seemed okay for now…

“I… I don’t want to get him to slip up. I just hope he knows that it’s me and that he doesn’t need to worry about Toothless anymore. So, he can concentrate on fighting”

“And once Toothless is free…”

“We can get them both out of there”

The two spirits looked at each other, determined to save dragon _and_ Rider, and nodded in agreement before running from cover to cover to get as close to Toothless as possible. After splitting up, with Elsa going deeper into the woods again and Jack waiting a few moments, the Winter Spirit fixated his eyes on the black dragon who was struggling under nets and weights of three grown Vikings who could easily compete with Norths’ size. He had to get those guys, and the muzzle, off him and turned around enough so that they would walk into Elsas’ direction. For a few moments his thoughts wandered back to the Nadder who was waiting back where they had found her, the enemy-Vikings securely bound to various trees. She wouldn’t be able to help with her injurie… Hopefully she would listen and wait for them.

Now was the time.

The wind around the dragon and three Vikings sped up, snowflakes from ground and air limiting their visibility greatly. Jack didn’t even listen to what they were saying, they sounded very confused though. Who wouldn’t be?

When he saw one of them get up, he froze the ground beneath the mans’ feet and grabbed his arm to literally turn him around a few times till he stumbled into the direction of loud roaring and falling trees. He couldn’t suppress a little triumphant grin which was wiped from his face rather quickly when someone got a hold of his hood, pulled him back and slammed him in the ground, making him loose his staff. The wind was still raging but he could hear the man yell “Gotcha now”

“I just had to jinx it…” Out of the corner of his eye he saw a pair of heavy boots to his right and he couldn’t help but think that his spine would probably break if that guy decided to stomp on his back. Though… With the guy he sent into the woods, the one still holding his hood and the one to his right… Toothless was only held down by the nets. Before he could do anything about it though, he was lifted up again and thrown down with his back onto something else. Something moving and covered in ropes. That made things a bit easier. Without his staff he didn’t have control over the wind anymore so the storm would die down pretty soon but the snow was less of a problem. 

Quickly he gripped the nets with his left hand and somehow hooked his legs between the ropes on Toothless’ side. “Sorry if this hurts, Toothless”

Jack balled his free hand into a fist and punched the air to his right. Snow in the air above him and Toothless cramped together in one big mass and smacked the two men away from them. The pain from the hefty tug on his hoodie was expected, by throwing his head back he at least avoided being strangled but the guy was really determined to not let him go and he was still there after Jacks’ attack. So was the cloud of snow, still hiding them from vision. Just no wind.

“You little…”

“… I really miss the times when people weren’t able to see me…” Now he had gotten himself into trouble. Both his hands were free, but in his effort to not get dragged away from the Night Fury his legs got tangled in the ropes. Maybe he should’ve thought this through a bit more…

“What are you?”

“That’s a bit of a rude question, don’tcha think?” He wouldn’t be able to talk himself out of this. Beneath him Toothless started to struggle with the nets again but he couldn’t get free fast enough. Jack couldn’t come up with anything to get this guy off him before there was a loud roar and the Viking was grabbed by a giant fist made of snow. The pressure from all sides and the need to free himself finally made him let go. Hastily Jack sat up and freed his legs.

“Jack!” Elsa appeared out of the snow chaos and threw him his staff. As well as the sheathed knife that belonged to the first Viking.

The Guardian caught both. He unsheathed the knife and started to cut the Night Fury free.

“Be careful. I’m going back”

He just nodded. It was for the better if nobody knew that Elsa was here too.

As soon as he was free Toothless licked the Guardians’ face with a happy purring sound.

“Uh… I guess we’re good now?”, when the dragon nodded and turned his head towards the other side of the clearing Jack smiled “Then let’s go get Hiccup”

When the snowfall settled down to the natural level Jacks’ eyes grew wide and Toothless started to growl.

This didn’t go according to plan…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the movie Jack couldn't fly anymore when he lost his staff during one fight with Pitch.  
> So I'm going with that.
> 
> I also tried to draw Elsa if anyone wants to see my poor attempt at designing a dress and draw a human.  
> https://www.deviantart.com/schattenschreiberin/art/Elsa-849779637


	7. Chapter 7

“Drop your weapons!”

Jack glared at the brawny Viking and threw the knife to the side.

“Both of them!”

“You’re scared of a stick?”

“I saw what just happened. Only an idiot would let you keep that”

“Yeah… you’re definitely not an idiot” the Spirit murmured. He looked at his staff for a few seconds before hurling it away into the shadows of the trees behind him “There. Happy?”

The two remaining enemies visibly relaxed, knowing that they reduced the opposite sites’ power. There was still a furious Night Fury, but he didn’t seem to dare to attack as long as there was a sharp blade pressed against his Riders’ throat.

Jack put a hand on Toothless’ head. To calm the dragon and himself. This was going wrong in so many ways. Hiccup lost his sword and had his hands tied behind his back. It was pretty obvious that the other Vikings had waited and prepared for Toothless to come into view again… At least they didn’t seem to know that he didn’t necessarily need his staff to fight. Elsa was still around too. He just didn’t know what to do… “… And now?”

“Now you’re going to show some respect for your new Viking-Masters”, the man that wasn’t holding Hiccup, a guy with a long dark-brown beard, grinned and revealed a lot of yellowed and missing teeth “We are all going on a little journey”

Jack looked at Hiccup and non-verbally begged him to stay silent when he saw the growing rage in his green eyes. They needed more time and lashing out would not help with that. “No, thank you… I have a few things to say about that. First thing would be, that I only see one Viking over there and I would really like him back now and second… Why would you think that you can demand anything from us?”

“You just answered your own question. You want him back, you’ll only get him when you follow my orders”

“I wouldn’t”, Jack crossed his arms “If I would follow your orders, we would all be trapped. The only thing you got right now is that Toothless isn’t incinerating you. You know what a stalemate is?”

“Of course, I do!”

“Well. This is one”

“How is this a stalemate?!”

The other Viking seemed to understand and looked like he was frozen in place, uncertain what to do with Hiccup now.

This and the still falling snow finally gave Jack an idea. It was stupid and could very easily backfire… but there wasn’t anything that could not backfire at this moment. “You really don’t see it? This”, he nodded towards Toothless “is a Night Fury, the unholy offspring of Lightning and Death. And you’ve got his best friend over there with you, ready to kill him. Do you really need someone to spell out for you what will happen _if_ you kill him?”

The one with the brown beard grinned again “We got em under control once, we can do it again”

“Oh yeah? You and what army? Cause you two are busy talking and hiding behind a teenager, three of your men are lost in the night woods and four more are tied to trees somewhere else” The dumbfounded look on the Vikings’ face wasn’t as funny to him as it would usually be. He was too busy with talking and redirecting snowflakes so they would cover the arm and sword of the other man faster. He wasn’t good at that without his staff, but it seemed like someone else was helping him already. Just a bit more…

“You think you’re really clever, don’t you?!” the Viking was so enraged that his face was turning red.

“I’m over 600 years old. I’d like to think that I’m at least not dumber than you”

“You’re just an arrogant child if you think I would take a crew of eight men with me to hunt dragons”

“… I was afraid you would say that…” Course it wouldn’t be all of them… Now Hiccup glared at him to get him to shut up. Maybe that wasn’t the worst idea… Toothless spread his wings and snarled to look more intimidating but Jack quickly put his hand on the dragons’ head again. He just spotted a flash of white and blue between the trees behind the Vikings and Hiccup.

Elsa.

The Snow Queen, trying to stay as low as possible, pointed from her other hand that was hidden behind a tree and holding her staff to Hiccup. She would take care of the Dragon Trainer. So… He and Toothless only needed to defend themselves from whatever would be thrown at them in the very near future.

“What do you even want with them?”, the Lead-Viking turned around when he heard Hiccup speak “Let them go and I’ll help you”

“We’ve been over this, Dragon Conqueror-“

“And I told you what happened to the last guys who tried to kidnap me _and_ my dragon”

Jack quickly crouched down next to Toothless, to calm him down. “Please stay low and do exactly what I tell you”, he whispered while trying to pull down the black wings “My sister is going to free Hiccup and we need to avoid getting trapped again” The Night Fury narrowed his eyes and glared at the two Trappers but laid his wings back on. “We’re going to lift the snow again so it will be hard to see for them. You just have to stay close to the ground”

Elsa peeked around the tree again, holding up three fingers. Counting down slowly.

At 0 things went fast, too fast to go as well as they did.

Elsa froze the snow covering the arm and sword of Hiccups’ captor to then pull them away from the teen, causing the bigger Viking to stumble to the side and the younger one to fall to the ground.

Snow from the ground and air started to whirl around the clearing, making it almost impossible to see.

Toothless held his head low, his chin almost touching the ground. There were around two feet between the ground and the chaos clear of any snow and obstacles. The dragon could see his rider being freed by a blond woman and taking his sword from her. They both looked at him then and the woman quickly beckoned him to make his way over. “Go”, Jack gave the dragon a little shove “I’ll be right behind you, just need to go get something first”

The Night Fury gave an unwilling growl but started to make his way across the clearing.

The two Trappers were easy to spot from their point of view and Elsa made sure that they didn’t get a chance to get too close to Toothless. If there were still others out there in the woods Jack would _hopefully_ be able to take care of them on his own. Why did that idiot had to throw his staff away like that?

After Toothless had reached them they retreated out of the snow chaos into the woods.

Hiccup checked his dragon quickly for any injuries as well as their equipment for damages and cursed under his breath.

“What’s wrong?” Elsa kept her eyes on the clearing.

“They cut his tailfin. I have nothing to repair it…”, he sighed and petted Toothless’ head “We’ll get around this, buddy”

“If it’s only cloth that you need, I can do that for you in a second”

“… Not much more”, he looked from her to the whirling snow on the clearing “But could you tell me who you are first? And where Jack went?”

Elsa gave him a warm smile “I’m Elsa. Jacks’ sister” worry was clearly visible in her blue eyes “And that moron is somewhere over there to get his staff…”

“Then we should go and find him and not sit and wait” Hiccup didn’t know how many more men were out there, but he didn’t like the thought of Jack running into them alone and without his staff.

The blond Spirit shook her head “Give him another moment. Show me what you need”

Toothless kept watch while Elsa worked on repairing his tailfin. The sudden cold feeling made him twitch his tail and look back at her. His left fin was now a glittering light blue color and felt unusually chilly against his scales. Hiccup tested if it was moving as it should “That’s pret-“ a sudden blast of cold air cut him off and caused Toothless to quickly spread one of his wings to shield his Rider and his new friend from the snow and branches that were raining down on them.

When the air was calmer again the clearing was surrounded by a literal wall of snow, at least 5 feet high. From behind it, voices could be heard.

“Ugh… Not so clever anymore, ey?”

“I guess I’m having a bad day… but I still made you lose”

Spirit, dragon and Rider looked at each other for a moment before getting up and carefully peeking over the snowdrift.

And what they saw on the other side made Hiccup and Elsa curse in unison “Damnit, Jack”

They quickly took cover again and Elsa poked some holes in the snow so they could see through instead of over it, decreasing their chance of being detected.

Hiccup gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on his Dragon Blade while Toothless’ tail was swishing from side to side, anger in his narrowed eyes.

“I hope we don’t do a full circle and you guys have to save me before we get out of here…” the Winter Spirit started fidgeting with her staff.

“Don’t jinx it”

“Yeah… that’s probably what Jack did…”

Hiccup glared at the Vikings in the clearing, too many to just storm in there…

There was the one who still had to free his arm and sword from ice, the Leader and four additional men. They were probably sent out to find the escaped dragon and just came back to rejoin the rest of the crew. According to Elsa they weren’t the ones she and Jack had encountered earlier.

At least one of them had decided to throw their bola at Jack instead of a dragon, tying his arms to his chest and back.

Hiccup had been hit by these while he was riding Toothless. The stones from back then had only hit his dragon, which didn’t make him feel much better about the situation but it spared him from most of the pain and it would’ve hurt him more than Toothless, with his scales and fairly thick skin. Jack didn’t have any kind of protection and even though his voice didn’t, the tension and trembling of his body showed that he might not be able to stand upright without the two Vikings holding him in place.

The Leader was twirling Jacks’ staff in his hands “I suppose you don’t need this for all of your little magic tricks”

“If only you had realized that a few minutes ago”

The brawny man looked at him with a mixture of rage and annoyance before dropping the staff on the ground and stomping on it, breaking it in half.

Jack flinched at the cracking sound.

“Now… Tell me where you friends went”

The Guardian stared at the ground “… You actually expect me to answer that?”

Grabbing and pulling on Jacks’ hair, the Viking forced him to look up again “If you want to keep living”

Any response he could’ve given to that stayed stuck in his throat. These guys weren’t bluffing… but he didn’t go through all that trouble to let them get to his friends again. Dying a second time shouldn’t be that easy…

Suddenly an elongated object hit the ground between them with a soft ‘thud’.

With a loud hissing, green gas was released, and Jack quickly held his breath. He knew what that was. Hiccup had shown him Inferno two months ago. The Vikings realized a bit too late what kind of gas they were breathing in and stumbled backwards, away from the source.

The snow around the Leader and the man beside him rose till it reached their shoulders and froze them in place. The Dragon Blade and the parts of Jacks’ staff were thrown through the air, using the same trick that was used to free Hiccup, and were caught by the Dragon Rider and Elsa. Both jumped over the snowdrift they had been hiding behind, Toothless close behind them.

At their sight the remaining four Trappers readied their weapons and raised their bolas to throw them at the Night Fury. Jack got tossed onto the ground behind them.

Toothless’ first shot was aimed at the still lingering gas, causing an explosion and one of the men to fall over.

They didn’t really have a plan but so far, every plan had failed anyway… Three bolas were left, one hit Toothless, but Elsa quickly freed him while Hiccup tried to keep the axe- and sword-wielding Vikings at bay.

This still wasn’t a fair fight and Jack hated nothing more than being unable to help. No matter how much he struggled he couldn’t get his arms free.

Suddenly there was the roar of a second dragon, then a third one. The Trappers dodged the yellow Gronckle before splitting up to attack it and Hiccup and Elsa. The ray of fire from the Nadder was harder to dodge. The leader and the fifth Viking had freed themselves from the ice and got immediately thrown back from an explosion caused by one of Toothless fireballs, another man cried out when he was hit by the Deadly Nadders’ spikes.

Slowly but surely the three dragons forced the Trappers to retreat into the forest.

Growling loudly Toothless started to patrol the outskirts of the clearing, making sure that there would be no more attacks, while Elsa and Hiccup ran over to Jack.

The Nadder watched intently as the auburn-haired cut the ropes of the bolas with the dagger from his flight suit.

“Never do something so stupid ever again!” Elsa tightly hugged her brother which resulted in a pained wheeze from him.

“What… stupid thing… are you referring to? It’s a bit… hard to breath…”

“I’m sorry!” She instantly let him go, causing him to fall against Hiccup who was kneeling behind him.

“I’m pretty sure she’s referring to almost everything”, while Elsa was nodding furiously, he picked up one of the iron weights from the bola “How many of those actually hit you?”

“… How many are there?”

The Gronckle gave another Goodbye-roar before taking its leave while the Nadder leaned down to rub Jacks’ cheek with her nose.

Jack smiled and stroked the white scales “Didn’t we tell you to wait for us?”

“I’m really glad she didn’t” Elsa beamed at the blue-white dragon, she was still too afraid to actually touch it though.

“I guess we would all be in a lot more trouble without her” Hiccup let his eyes wander over the dragons’ leg. A crossbow bolt was stuck in it.

“You can treat her, right?”

“I’m gonna treat you both, Jack. Can you get up?”

He couldn’t. Or rather, Elsa and Hiccup didn’t want him to.

One of the weights had hit his left thigh and it didn’t look like it was a simple bruise.

“Toothless can’t carry all of us at once”, Hiccup searched the remains of the bolas and nets for some ropes that were still long enough for his purposes and then looked at Elsa “Can you ride the Nadder?”

“Is this a rhetorical question…? You look like you’re already preparing for _someone_ to ride her”

The Viking shrugged his shoulders with an apologetic smile “We can’t let Jack fly alone and I might be too heavy for her injured leg”

“You guys know that I’m not made out of glass, right…?”

Elsa looked up into the dragons’ yellow eyes. There didn’t seem to be any aggression or the like in them… “Alright… I’ve never done this before…”

“Don’t worry”, Hiccup stroked the neck of the injured dragon before slowly and carefully putting the rope around its torso “We’ll be right next to you the entire time”

“That’s comforting…” The Spirit followed Hiccups orders very meticulously when he told her how she needed to let the dragon know that she could trust her among various other things. Elsa strapped her staff to her back before climbing on the dragons’ back. The Nadder turned her head to look at her and she carefully stroked the scales on its neck.

The Viking gave her an encouraging smile before mounting Toothless with Jack in front of him. The Night Fury too gave the Nadder and her rider an encouraging roar. Then they took off into the night sky. The Nadder right next to the Night Fury.

And Elsa just hoped that Berk wasn’t too far away.

“Hiccup!”

He took his eyes off Elsa and looked forward “Astrid?!”

They were almost back to Berk when Astrid and Snotlout came towards them. They both turned their Dragons around to flank the two others.

“Where were you?”, the blond Rider let her eyes wander from the unknown Nadder and Rider to the scratches and damages on Hiccups face and suit as well as the pale Guardian he had in front of him “And what happened? To all of you”

“It’s a longer story…” Hiccup quickly glanced over at Elsa who already seemed to have to deal with Snotlouts’ flirting “Could you get Gothi for me. And get Snotlout to Gobber. There’s a crossbow bolt stuck in this Nadders’ leg”

“How about we switch? Snotlout, Hookfang!”, the Monstrous Nightmare paid more attention to Astrid than his Rider but that was enough for her “Go get Gothi and bring her to Hiccups’ house!”

“I don’t know if you noticed, Astrid, but we’re having a conversation over here!”

“Hey Snotlout!”, the black-haired Viking gave Jack an annoyed look and the Guardian grinned “If you don’t stop hitting on my sister, not even Hookfang will be able to unfreeze your balls”

Jacks’ warning paired with Elsas’ dead-serious expression and the glowing tip of her staff, that was clearly aimed at him, finally caused Snotlout and Hookfang to split up from the rest of the group.

Astrid repositioned Stormfly so they were right next to Elsa “Come with me. We’ll take care of your dragon”

“She isn’t really mine…” After looking at Hiccup and seeing him nod she tried to direct the Nadder to follow Astrid. Toothless’ roar probably helped with that.

This wasn’t how she had imagined her first visit to Berk…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to add that without the Nadder nobody would have been in trouble
> 
> I'm not good at writing fights am I?


	8. Chapter 8

About two hours later the girls entered Hiccups room.

“Gobber took care of the Nadder. She’s going to be fine”, Astrid looked from Jack to Elsa “You two should name her”

Both Spirits paused, Elsa in the middle of altering her sleeves and Jack while putting his hoodie back on, and stared at her in confusion. Hiccup just smiled and finished removing the cold fabric from Toothless’ tailfin.

“What are those looks for?”

“I just don’t see why we should give her a name…” Elsa brushed some snowflakes from her now short sleeves and took the light-blue cloth from Hiccup. With a few finger movements it turned into a glittering scarf.

Jack pulled his hoodie all the way down, covering the various contusions the bola had left him with. Miraculously he didn’t break any bones this time. “We can give her a name, but we can’t keep her”

“Why not?”, Hiccup gave the Guardian another worried look before petting Toothless’ head “She clearly likes you two. She came to save you, Jack, and she let you ride her without complaint, Elsa”

“But we can’t take her with us. We are rarely in the same place”

“And Elsa doesn’t even fly from place to place” added Jack.

“She could just stay here on Berk. You’re going to come visit again”, Astrid squinted her eyes at the two boys “But how about we all sleep a night over this? You two have some other things to talk about anyway”

Elsa smiled brightly “They do”

Jack and Hiccup both blushed furiously and Astrid hooked her arm with Elsas’ “We’re going to leave you to it” Elsa beamed at her “Sleepover?” “If you want to call it that” “My last Sleepover was more than 605 years ago. What do you guys do these days?”

Toothless looked from the Guardian and his best friend to the two chatting girls taking their leave before laying his head on his paws and closing his eyes. This wasn’t something he would involve himself into again.

After the girls closed it behind them Hiccup just stared at the door.

He had waited two months- no… more than five years for this. The last two months were just worse than the rest because he knew for sure he would get to see Jack again… And now he was even more nervous than back at the little island… “So… Your sister became a spirit too…”

Jack shook his head “No. Elsa wasn’t my sister when we were alive. We both died with the mentality to protect a younger sister though…”

“Oh… So you two are-“

“You really want to talk about me and Elsa now?”

“… No”, Hiccup put Toothless’ prosthetic aside and sat down on his bed next to Jack “I’m just… bad at talking about it”

“We both are”, Jack chuckled and grinned “There’s only one thing we are even worse at”

Hiccup raised an eyebrow and looked at him questioningly.

“Getting even”

After a suspiciously long time of silence, apart from the rustling of hair and cloth, Toothless opened his eyes and looked over to the bed. His ears perked up and if dragons would be able to blush Toothless would probably be right now. Hiccup and Jack were kissing, not like the Vikings’ clumsy attempt from two months ago, actually kissing, eyes closed, and hands tangled in each others’ hair and clothes. Toothless decided that watching was rude so he quickly returned to his previous position. With a silent approving purr.

When they broke apart both gasped for air.

“I’m sorry… For leaving you behind… and for letting you wait so long…”, his fingers slipped out of Hiccups’ hair to his shoulders “For someone who’s supposed to spread joy and help create happy memories for others, I’m way to hung up on my own bad ones… I am afraid of pain but it’s like with your leg”

“It is?” smiling Hiccup cocked his head.

Jack nodded “It’s worth it… You’re worth it. But…”, he backed off a bit and the Viking could see the same uncertainty from two months ago in his eyes “Are you sure you want me… I’m not aging anymore, I’m just going to stay like this forever while every-“

“Jack”, Hiccup gently cupped his cheek “I already said it and I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it… It doesn’t matter to me how old you look and how old you actually are. The only thing that matters to me is that you are you”

Toothless paid the following silence no mind since it already happened not too long ago but at the barely audible sounds of sobbing and hiccups his ears perked up again. Confused, as to why someone was suddenly crying, the Night Fury looked over to the two boys. Both had pulled their legs up onto the bed and Hiccup was leaning against the headboard, smiling and slowly stroking Jacks’ back who had wrapped his arms around the Viking and his face buried in Hiccups’ chest. From his place Toothless could see that the Spirit was smiling too but also crying and he was twitching from hiccupping and weak laughter.

Toothless watched confused and uncertain on what to think about this till Jacks’ breathing calmed down and Hiccups’ hand laid still. Careful the dragon got up and walked over to the sleeping couple. After a few moments he decided that everything was fine and pulled the blanket from the foot of the bed over the two before going to sleep himself.

Sometimes humans showed their feelings in quite confusing ways…

“You know… Usually ‘Sleepovers’ involve a bit more sleeping”

“Hm?” Elsa looked over her shoulder to Astrid.

The blond Viking had just woken up and already had to look for her guest who didn’t seem to have even used the blanket and pillow Astrid had lend her. The sun was rising, and Elsa was sitting in the snow behind Astrids’ house.

“I’m sorry, Astrid. I just don’t really need sleep and I didn’t want to wake you”

Astrid frowned and sat down next to Elsa “Last night you flew on a dragon for the first time for a few hours. That didn’t make you feel tired at all?”

“It made me feel anxious while we were flying… Since it was pretty high”

“Why would that-“

“Wait!”, Elsa jumped to her feet and looked down at the younger girl “You think I can do everything Jack can, right?”

“Kind of”, the Viking tugged a few strands of hair behind her ear “You’re both Winter Spirits after all”

“We are but…“, Elsa paused for a moment and looked around before smiling at Astrid “How do you feel about a sung explanation?”

The teenager gave her a puzzled look “How do you mean that?”

“Like a musical”

“I… don’t know what that is”, Astrid admitted, feeling a little guilty when Elsa looked very disappointed “Maybe you could show me later and we just talk now?”

“I would love that”, the blond woman smiled and sat back down, cross-legged and facing the Viking “Do you want to start with what Winter Spirits are in general?”

Astrid thought about if it was too early for some kind of scientific explanation like Hiccup or Fishlegs sometimes gave when it came to dragons but Spirits were more like mythological beings so it would probably be like listening to a story by the fireplace. “Sure”

“Alright… A spirit is essentially the soul of someone who died with unfinished business in this world. That or their soul is held back by someones’ or somethings’ doing. A Winter Spirit”, Elsa raised her hands and following the movements of her slender fingers the snow from the ground rose up and created two ice-figures, both about a foot tall “belongs to the latter”

Astrids’ eyes grew wide at the show of the older ones’ powers. The figures were small and there were some obvious differences in their clothing, but they were easily recognizable as Elsa and Jack. Elsa with unbraided hair, in a long dress with a high up collar and a long cape. Jack with a poncho, shirt and similar pants to the ones he wore nowadays. Both were without their staffs.

“Every Winter Spirit dies in a way that is related to the cold… Like drowning in a frozen over lake or simply freezing to death in the forest… And if you’re deemed worthy or just useful you’re getting bound to this world by… a higher being” The snow rose up again, covering the figures and when it settled down Elsa and Jack looked like their current selves, holding their staffs and everything. But there was a very significant addition to the sculptures. Above Jack was a hovering sphere and behind Elsa was a tall cloaked figure with a long beard, hands resting on her shoulders. “And this is the difference between me and Jack. I am what you could call a ‘traditional’ Winter-Spirit, chosen by the one who chose every other spirit, while Jack was chosen by the Man in the Moon to eventually become a Guardian”

Astrid cocked her head and looked at the cloaked figure with a suspicious look in her eyes. It was just ice but… for some reason she felt like she wouldn’t like this guy at all.

“The moon gave Jack a few things that I didn’t get, like a beating heart, the power to control the wind to an extend that he can actually fly and various other things that help him with his job as a Guardian. I… did get, among other things, the ability to just vanish and appear somewhere else and the privilege of a frozen heart”, Elsa put a hand on her chest “Unable to get attached to a mortal being so I would be able to not care about the lives that are lost in the cold. It doesn’t work that well for me though”

“You Spirits get a frozen heart so you can let people just die in a storm?” Astrid didn’t even know why it was so shocking to her. How else would someone like Elsa be able to live on like this, right? Then she blinked “What do you mean with ‘it doesn’t work so well’?”

The Spirit tugged at her braid “I do care… I always try to reduce the damage as much as possible. Getting people to seek shelter in time, even if they can’t see me… But it doesn’t hurt to see them die… That’s the big problem Jack has. He gets attached to people… And he feels like dying himself when they must leave this world. Immortality isn’t something to shoot for, it’s something that should be avoided” Elsa started chewing on her bottom lip “Some people really shouldn’t be able to influence the world forever…”

When the Spirit fell silent Astrid thought about everything, she just heard and what questions she wanted answers too. Elsa didn’t seem like she wanted to talk about the ‘higher being’ that made her a Spirit but… “So, there are more Winter Spirits than just you two?”

Elsa took the floating sphere and started fidgeting with it “Yeah… But I can’t talk about them”

“Why not?”

“It’s… It has many reasons. One is that it’s just impolite to talk about a Spirit to someone they don’t know”

Astrid nodded, to her that was an acceptable answer. “Why would people not be able to see you? Everyone around here can see Jack and so far, everyone was able to see you too”

“It’s your culture”, she stopped fidgeting and smiled “You believe in one Winter Spirit and that seems to carry on to every other”

“So… I can see you because Jack is part of our mythology?”

Elsa frowned “I don’t think that Jack Frost is part of it?”

“But isn’t Joku- Hh!” Before Astrid could finish Elsas’ body tensed up and the figures, as well as the sphere in her hands, exploded into thousands of tiny shards. The teenager quickly raised her arm to shield her eyes and backed off from the frigid cold that suddenly surrounded the older woman.

It took a few moments but eventually Elsa regained her composure and the temperature rose again. She took a deep breath “I’m sorry, Astrid… Did you get hit by one of those?”

“Just… a few scratches”, the Viking cautiously lowered her arm again “Was it something I said?”

“Yes…”, the Spirit rubbed her arms, as if she felt cold “Jokul Frosti is not Jack. Never say that again… especially when Jack is around to hear it”

Astrid nodded and looked at the spot where the two ice-figures had stood. She just had to know… “Is… he the one who made you a spirit?”

“No…”, Elsa seemed to argue with herself if she should talk about Jokul Frosti or not but finally “It wouldn’t surprise me though if I froze in one of his snowstorms… He is… Me and Jack try to tone down the storms and… Jokul is the one who makes them worse. His heart is frozen and pitch black, no empathy for mortals or other spirits. There is only one he listens to and he is not much better”

“I guess I should tell everyone else then…” the Spirits’ words made Astrid feel surprisingly uncomfortable.

“Please do… I never liked to see Jack being upset…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you loose control over your powers after having them for 600 years just because you hear a name...


	9. Chapter 9

Elsa and Jack were sitting on crates on the edge of the arena, the blue-white Nadder beside them enjoying her breakfast, and watched Astrid, Hiccup and the twins train with their dragons. Right now, Elsa was watching more intently than Jack though since he was working on repairing his staff.

The Snow Queen waited till the white light next to her died down and Jack leaned his staff against the wall “You think we could do that too?”

“Yesterday you didn’t even want to get near her and now you want to learn how to train her for battle?”

“Not that…”, she watched as Stormfly followed Astrids’ hand signs and fired her spikes at various targets “Just work with her in general”

“And you just want to leave her here for months on end till we find the time to come by again”, Jack patted the Nadders’ head “I don’t know if that would be fair…”

“I didn’t expect you to stay away for so long”, she smiled “Now that you have a boyfriend here”

“Elsa… I can’t stay long. At least right now”

“Why not? Who says that you guys can or need to do anything about this whole mysterious-deaths thing?”

Jack sighed “The Moon…”

Elsa crossed her arms “The same Moon who left you without memories to your own devices for three hundred years?”

“… Yes”, the Guardian looked over to Hiccup and Toothless “He was silent but when he finally talked it was important and true. If there’s something out there that causes all of this and I can do something to stop it…”

“That’s a big ‘if’…”

“… And if we don’t do anything about it, whatever it is might start to affect Berk”

The platinum-blond bit her lip. That was the last thing she wanted…

“Hey, you two” The Spirits looked up when Hiccup and Astrid came over to them. “Did you decide what to do with her?” Astrid continued and took a seat on the crate next to Elsa.

Jack watched Hiccup as he took a look at the Nadders’ injurie “Not really… Would it be fair to just leave her here waiting for us?”

“Fairer than just send her away”, Hiccup stroked the dragons’ neck and smiled at Jack “And even if you’re away for a while it’s not going to be forever”

„ **If he stays away too long I’ll drag him here** “ The girls looked at each other in surprise at their unison threat. Then they grinned and raised their hands for a fist bump.

The sight of the two blonds teaming up actually did make Jack feel threatened. „... I’ll make sure to drop by regularly“

“And I’ll do the same. It’s gonna be nice to have a place to meet up from time to time”, Elsa smiled and reached over to ruffle Jacks’ hair before looking at Astrid and Hiccup with the same fond smile “with family _and_ friends”

Astrid nodded and laughed as Toothless and Stormfly moved closer to them, Stormfly rubbing her cheek against her Riders’ hair. Of course, the dragons were part of their group too.

“How about ‘Snowcone’?”

Hiccup chuckled at Jacks’ idea “It had to be something snow-related”

Pouting Jack shot him a playful glare “Don’t make fun of my names”

Elsa leaned over to whisper in Astrids’ ear “All their nicknames for each other are going to be winter- and dragon-related” which caused the younger one to grin.

“Come up with something else before criticizing me, Elsa”

“I would never. I think it’s cute”, the Spirit got up and walked over to the Nadder “What do you think? Do you want to be called ‘Snowcone’?”

The dragon turned her head from side to side before nuzzling her head against Jacks’ then Elsas’ chest, causing them both to laugh and grin. “’Snowcone’ it is”

“You should have a new outfit too”

“Why?”

“Because we’re Riders now and I already have one” Elsa gestured to her clothes. Her new attire was very similar to Astrids’, minus the hood and the skulls on the belt, just in blues and white.

“I don’t see why being a Rider requires me to change clothes…” Jack had mixed feelings and memories of Elsa trying to get him into different clothes.

“Hiccup has an entire suit just for flying”

The young Viking raised his head at the sound of his name. He had been busy with working on Stromflys’ old saddle, so it would fit Snowcone. “My suit is more about functionality though. And I don’t necessarily need it to ride Toothless”

“Only to pull off your crazy stunts”

Hiccup chuckled and Jacks’ grin grew wider “Yes. Few of those wouldn’t end well without it”

Pouting Elsa eyed Hiccups’ suit. She didn’t get a chance yet to see what else it was good for aside from protection. And looking good. “Still… I think after wearing the same for more than three hundred years it is time for a change”

“Elsa… You’re in no position to tell me what to wear”

She crossed her arms with a defeated look “Fine… but”, a devious grin spread across her face “I can make you at least try one”

“No… you won’t…” slowly Jack backed away from her. There was no way to run behind him though. Only his boyfriend with a slightly worried expression on his freckle-dusted face.

“Just one!” with this the taller Spirit tackled him and a vortex of snowflakes hid them from Hiccups’ and a few seconds later Gobbers’ view. Latter had decided to check on the back of the forge after hearing Elsas’ yelling.

It took almost two minutes till the snow settled down on the ground, melting quickly and leaving the two Spirits standing in a small puddle of water. Elsa was holding Jack on his upper arms to have a good look at her work while Jack himself had his eyes closed, obviously not wanting to see what Elsa had put him in. Gobber gave an impressed whistle at Elsas’ accurate work. It was an almost perfect copy of Hiccups’ outfit with only a few changes. The pants and boots were adjusted for a person with two intact legs, the emblem on the right shoulder pad looked like a gust of wind carrying snowflakes and the whole thing was in blues and white. Like all clothes Elsa created.

“You can open your eyes now”

“I’ll open them after you change me back”

“Mhm… I’ll do that tomorrow”

“What?!”, Jacks’ eyes snapped open and he glared at her angrily “You can’t force me to wear this for so long!”

“You haven’t even looked at it yet”, she gave him a light shove before crossing her arms “And to try something new you should at least walk around in it a bit” And before Jack could give any more contradictions she vanished in a cloud of snow.

“It’s a good look on ya” Gobber commented after the room was snow free again.

The Guardian sighed and finally looked at what he was wearing. It wasn’t a big surprise to him. “I’m having trouble believing you…”

Meanwhile Hiccup was trying not to laugh. No matter if he looked good in it or not, Jack in a winter-fied version of his Flightsuit was just adorable.

“I don’t even remember the last time I wore shoes…” uncertain if he should at least take the boots off, to get a little bit of normalcy back, Jack tapped his heel on the floor a few times.

“Ah” Gobbers’ face lit up “This reminds me of the time the whole village was without boots for a few days because they were stolen and chewed up by a dragon. Or so we thought”

“You thought?”

“Yes! Turns out they were framed”, seemingly determined to distract Jack, Gobber put his arm around the smaller males shoulders “Mildew wanted to get rid of them” He paused and scratched his chin thoughtfully “We never found out if he bit all the holes in them too”

Over the course of the afternoon Jack got to hear a lot of different and partly completely disconnected stories, Astrid showed up to confirm if the boys’ partner look was in fact as cute as Elsa said it was and Hiccup finished his work on Snowcones’ saddle as well as a new tailfin for Toothless.

And then it was night.

“Could you help me instead of laughing?”

“I’m not laughing” but Hiccup was pretty close to it. While Toothless definitely sounded like he was laughing at Jack struggling with getting out of Elsas’ magically created clothes. Hiccup could confirm that it wasn’t very comfortable to sleep with the shoulder pads and all, so he had offered Jack some of his own clothes for the night. He only needed to get the suit off first.

“Hic, please…”

“I’m coming” the young Viking left his dragons’ prosthetic on his desk and got up to help his boyfriend. He still couldn’t tell if the suit looked good on him or not. It was an unusual sight for sure and, judging by Jacks’ face, a very rare one. While helping Jack Hiccup slowly realized that Elsa had to have either a very good memory or had been staring at him way longer and more intensely than he had noticed…

Changing out of the pants and shirt didn’t require the younger ones help anymore so he quickly finished his work on Toothless’ tailfin. But not without sneaking one glance at the Spirit. It was true that Jack’s injuries healed fast but the bruises from the day before were still clearly visible on his pale skin. Maybe it would’ve hurt less if he had worn a suit like his back then… Hiccup sighed and finished affixing the new cloth to Toothless’ prosthetic.

A moment later he was hugged from behind and he saw white hair out of the corner of his eye.

“Can’t you let me get up first?”

“I can’t put my head on your shoulder like this… when you’re standing…”

Hiccup chuckled and gently ruffled the mess of white on his shoulder “You didn’t expect me to grow so much, did you?”

“Not this much. I know I probably missed out on some growing but I didn’t think you would grow over my head like this…”, the Guardian sighed and Hiccup could feel his cool breath against his neck “At least you’re done growing now”

The Viking grinned “See the positive. Now my clothes are too big for you and you’ll look adorable in them” He could feel the heat radiating off Jacks’ face and the Spirit quickly retreated mumbling something inaudible under his breath.

On the other side of the room Toothless scratched on his stone-bed, a sign that the dragon wanted to sleep now and advised his friend to do the same. “Alright, buddy”, Hiccup got up and walked over to the Night Fury to pat his head “Good night” The dragon purred silently and curled his tail around himself. Hiccup smiled at his best friend before going to bed himself.

Jack was sitting there, tugging at the collar of the shirt that was in fact too big for him, still with a red tint on his cheeks. “Lucky for you… that I’ll always stay ‘adorable’…”

“Jack…”, Hiccup sat down and pulled the older male in a hug “You know I don’t care about it”

The Guardian laid his head on the Vikings chest and sighed “I know… It’s just a bit hard for me to not think about it…”

“Don’t think about how things might end… I’ll stay with you as long as I can. I promise”

Jack had to think about what Elsa told him back at the clearing with her ice sculptures and he smiled “You’ll always be with me… no matter what”

Smiling just as bright Hiccup hugged his Spirit tightly before they laid down, cuddling till the Viking fell asleep. Jack watched him sleep for a little while before burying his face in his chest. Smiling happily and slowly drifting off to sleep.

Knocking woke them up.

Toothless was already awake and stretching, arching his back like a cat, when Hiccup raised his head and looked up to the window above his bed. It was still dark outside. At this time of day, it could only be one.

“Do you want to skip our morning flight today again or are you going to get up?”

“Tell Elsa she has to change my clothes back before anyone goes anywhere”

They heard Astrid laugh and walk back down the stairs, presumably to go and get Elsa. Hiccup had to laugh as well “You know that it’s called a ‘Flightsuit’ for a reason, right?”

Jack just raised an eyebrow at him “ _You_ should know that it is your flightsuit and that I don’t need something like it”

“I guess I can’t argue with that”

Both boys hurried to get ready, even if Jack didn’t need a dragon or a flightsuit to fly he still liked to know if he could beat Toothless’ speed today. In order for Elsa to change his own clothes back to normal he had to put her suit on first though… Luckily it didn’t take too long and soon the four of them were standing outside of Hiccups’ house among their dragons with Hiccup checking Toothless’ saddle and Jack and Elsa looking at Snowcone with concern in their blue eyes. “Shouldn’t you rest your leg?”, Elsa patted the Nadders’ nose “I don’t think you should fly just yet”

Snowcone looked at her injured leg. It was healing but the dragon should take it easy with starting and landing. “We’re not going to be gone for long” Jack smiled. He was pretty sure that if she would be able to, Snowcone would be pouting right now. He was also pretty sure that she would definitely not do what Elsa or he told her.

Hiccup clicking his prosthetic in place lead the Spirits to turn to him and Astrid.

Astrid patted the free part of Stormflys’ saddle behind her and Elsa beamed before climbing on the Nadders’ back.

“You want to try to keep up with us again?” Hiccup grinned at Jack and Toothless had a quite smug look on his face.

Jack cocked his head and held his staff behind his back, already hovering a few inches above the ground. How he would love to beat the Night Furys’ speed… “Where’s the fun in not even trying, Hic?”

The Viking just laughed before adjusting Toothless’ tailfin, allowing the dragon to take off. Astrid grinned as Stormfly started following Hiccup and Jack, who didn’t give Hiccup even a whole second headstart “So it’s a race you want”

Toothless might be the fastest dragon around but Stormfly was a close second.

When she felt Elsa wrap her arms around her Astrid looked over her shoulder “Surprised?”

The Spirit could just nod. She knew that Toothless hadn’t even been close to his usual speed when they were flying to Berk, but this was almost insane. And she was sitting on a dragon that was slower than the Night Fury and was already overwhelmed. Stormfly wasn’t at her top speed just yet though.

Treetops were shaking violently as the dragons shot through the air above them, in addition to the wind that seemed as eager as the Guardian to reach the Night Furys’ speed. Well, it definitely could be faster than the dragon but that could cause some serious damages to the surrounding area. It only took a few minutes till the black dragon landed on a hill on the other side of Berk. They didn’t need to wait long for the others though.

Elsa looked like she had just gained a new perspective at life and was probably thinking about how fast Snowcone would be able to fly. She also almost fell off Stormflys’ back when the dragon landed next to Toothless.

Jack didn’t land and stayed at eyelevel with Astrid, propping one elbow on her shoulder “We’re going to beat that guy one day…”

“Astrid has been trying that for five years”, Hiccup grinned up at the two “So do your worst”

“Oh, I will”

Elsa suddenly started giggling and Astrid and Jack looked at her, but she just stood up on Stormflys’ saddle to look over the two at Hiccup “I’m pretty sure that you can be beaten at something right now”

“At what?”

“Flying _without_ Toothless”

Since Elsa had never seen the Vikings’ flightsuit in action she was probably joking but Astrid took it seriously “Yeah. You’d only have your airspeed so you definitely couldn’t keep up with us”

“You’re saying that as if you were able to fly without Stromfly” Hiccup looked up at Jack, who seemed to hold back a laugh.

“Well, we obviously just teamed up on you, Hic”, the Guardian grinned and cocked his head “I’m willing to share my victory with Astrid”

“Hm…” Hiccup looked at Toothless who looked at him expectantly.

And Elsa looked very bewildered about the fact that she actually sparked a discussion about, if Hiccup could fly faster than Jack. Without a dragon.

Ultimately Hiccup grinned and pointed at Jack “Under one condition”

“You really want to try this?”

“Where’s the fun in not even trying?”

Jack smiled at Hiccup quoting him “Under what condition?”

“I start from free falling. And so will you”

The thought off just falling from the sky made Jack tense up a bit. Maybe he spent a lot of time in the air, but he didn’t really enjoy being high up without control over the wind… So purposely taking no control and just fall was pretty difficult for him and Hiccup knew that.

“… Fine”

Elsa looked completely baffled as Toothless shot up in the air again, flying almost vertically, with Jack close behind him “… what did I just start?”

“An interesting competition” Astrid patted Stormflys’ neck “Let’s keep a close eye on them”

Hiccup was taking this challenge seriously. He stopped Toothless only after they broke through the clouds. The sun was slowly rising and painted the fluffy clouds beneath them orange and yellow.

“Are you still sure you want to try this” Jack stopped next to him. He couldn’t help but feel a little bit worried about his boyfriend. He knew that Hiccup had done this countless of times already but still.

But the auburn-haired teen just grinned and locked Toothless’ tailfin before unhooking his prosthetic “Are you?”

“… On three?”

“And don’t you dare to start flying before me”

The Guardian huffed “Yeah, yeah. Why would I try to cheat? I’m pretty sure you would notice”

Hiccup chuckled and after counting down they let themselves fall with Toothless diving after them.

Jack kept his eyes closed till he felt that they were past the clouds. Hiccup was right next to him and obviously enjoying the rush of adrenaline. Toothless was close to his rider as well, wings folded and falling just like them. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Stormfly and another, smaller dragon.

The farther they fell the louder the voice in his head got, reminding him that the fall wouldn’t be able to kill him. The collision with the ground would. Hiccup seemed to notice how he struggled to keep himself from stopping his fall and grinned before finally grasping the hoops at his legs to pull out his wings.

Fishlegs, Astrid and Elsa watched from a distance how the three finally stopped their fall and leveled out to fly, or glide, horizontally over the snowy hills. “Now I understand what Jack meant by ‘crazy stunts’…”, Elsa frowned and twirled the end of her braid between two fingers “But I don’t see how he could be faster…”

“But he has the possibility to keep up”, Fishlegs seemed excited about his friends’ strategy “He’s staying so close to Jack that the wind is carrying him too”

It didn’t work for long though. The Guardian drifted a good bit away from Hiccup before speeding up and flying in front of the Viking. Toothless shot one of his plasma blasts to keep his friend in the air. But there was no chance of catching up now.

“Fine. You win!” Hiccup didn’t really believe he would beat Jack at flying like this, but skydiving was fun, and it was interesting to see if the wind would speed him up as well.

Jack laughed and slowed down, ultimately ending up beneath the Viking where Hiccups’ wings were catching the wind again “You know that you could’ve just asked me for this?”

“And miss the opportunity to skydive with you?”

Grinning, the Guardian cocked his head “Seeing me fall to possible death is entertaining to you?”

“As long as I know that you can stop at any point you want”, Hiccup smiled “You can’t deny that it was exciting”

“It is. You’re still a madman for voluntarily doing this as often as you told me”

“You should’ve seen him testing his prototypes” Astrid and Fishlegs had caught up with them and the blond girl rolled her eyes at the memory. “Sounds like the tests were very successful” “They were tests. What did you expect?”

“Uh… Hiccup? I hate to interrupt but your father is looking for you” Fishlegs’ lips twitched into a tiny amused smile when his friend groaned. A few moments later Toothless had taken Jack’s place and Hiccup was back in the saddle. Astrid raised an eyebrow at him “Did you ‘forget’ about chiefing lessons?” “No… I just thought I might be excused since we still have visitors” the auburn-haired gestured to Jack and Elsa.

“Chiefing lessons?” Elsa looked slightly confused till Jack ruffled Hiccups hair and grinned “Future Chief, remember?” “Oh. Then you really shouldn’t skip those, Hiccup” “Not you too…” Hiccup dragged a hand across his face and sighed. There were dozens of things he wanted to do today and chiefing lessons were not on that list. He heard Jack laugh and looked over his shoulder to see that the spirit sat behind him “I could’ve told you that she would be on your dads’ side” “Yeah… Thanks for telling me _that_ now”

Fishlegs tried to cheer his friend up “Come on, Hiccup. It won’t take long, right?” 

“I don’t know, but…”, Hiccup looked down at his hands “this afternoon I’m giving lessons at the academy and Gobber wanted my help in the forge before that”

“Sounds like you have a lot to do today” “You’re not going to tell me that I should take a few hours off?” Jack raised his eyebrows at him “Am I supposed to?” “Well… you’re the Guardian of Fun” “Mhm… True. But I’m also a Guardian of Childhood and last time I checked you were a young adult, Hiccup” Astrid had to laugh at Jacks’ words and Hiccups’ slightly disappointed expression “Looks like you have to go attend your lessons” “I’ll fly back with you” offered Fishlegs and Hiccup sighed, defeated and a bit annoyed.

“You’re going to be thankful for your dads’ lessons some day” Jack leaned forward and kissed his cheek before sliding from Toothless’ saddle again. “How about I entertain our visitors while your busy and we meet at the great hall for dinner?” Astrid suggested as Hiccup adjusted Toothless’ tailfin to fly back to the village. He just grumbled in response while Elsa looked very excited “What are we going to do?” “You should take her somewhere peaceful where she can sing something before, she explodes” Elsa rolled her eyes “Very funny…”

Astrid cocked her head “You’re not coming with us?” Jack shook his head “I should go and meet up with someone, but I’ll be back for dinner”

“You better be”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to look up how fast Toothless can fly and I thought it would be difficult. Since it takes a lot of work to just find out how tall the characters are... But this was surprisingly easy. Google just straight up gave me the answer to "how fast is toothless". And that answer is 1,614 km/h.   
> That. Is. Insane.  
> Toothless would literally be faster than the speed of sound by almost 400 km/h. He does not fly that fast in any scene I can remember aside from the intro of Riders of Berk (Which is the basis for his top speed)  
> (Here's the the link to the post btw https://mainichinohanashi.tumblr.com/post/141648242027/toothless-top-speed)  
> According to the post, Hiccup would probably survive because he has Toothless. But they wouldn't be able to hear anything around them since they are faster than sound. That's probably why they don't to it on a daily basis and just in the intro to show off.
> 
> Jack would never be able to beat Toothless.  
> It is pretty obvious but I still looked it up (mainly because I was curious if someone even bothered to put "faster than sound" on a scale for wind)   
> On the enhanced Fujita scale wind that is faster than 322 km/h is EF5. Or just "Incredible damage". It wouldn't be fun for anyone involved... And seeing how Toothless struggled to get out of a tornado (?) in one of the episodes of Riders of Berk.... he wouldn't get out of there either.
> 
> I wanted something in my notes to reference when writing flying scenes, especially races soooo... Toothless usual every day top speed here is 80 - 95 km/h. Which is still a windspeed that could damage buildings and uproot trees.  
> That dragon is crazy...


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Added a new character to the tags of the story. Don't be confused by her name in the story. I'll explain.

The Barbaric Archipelago had nine months of snow and three of hail. Which was a description that wasn’t entirely correct but the years had still more white than green fields. Some might think that it would only require a Winter Spirit to watch over the area but the Big Seasonals had decided that, like every other place in the world, there should be more spirits assigned to the islands. For more reasons than just controlling the weather…

There wasn’t much to do for a Spring Spirit though. So, the most time of the year a little island with a fair amount of volcanic activity was the place to find her. In her hundreds of years spent on the island she had managed to turn some caverns and half covered craters into evergreen little forests and meadows dotted with flowers. It was literal magic and messing with the seasonal order but in this place… the Big Four didn’t care about it.

With her ebony wand the black-haired girl touched a closed lotus flower and the pink petals opened. The flower wasn’t native to the archipelago, the seeds had been a gift from one of her brothers, who hadn’t shown his face in the last six or seven years. None of her brothers did. They weren’t obligated to spent time with her and as long as they were alright, she didn’t need to see them, but it was getting lonely. Dragons and other animals could only provide so much company and after rereading a book for the 400th time it became a little bit boring. It was especially frustrating since she knew that at least one of them was in the archipelago right now, they both were at some points during every year.

But she wasn’t mad.

Getting attacked by a bunch of ‘bad’ mortals, finding a new dragon friend and having some important things to talk about with the future chief of the Hooligan Tribe required a few days to deal with after all.

A few Terrible Terrors entered the cavern trough the openings in the ceiling and one decided to settle down on her head. She chuckled and reached up to scratch the little dragons’ back “Hello, Schlafmütz. How are you doing on this wonderful day?” The dragon answered with a lazy chirping sound. “Really? The sun just rose barely an hour ago” This time the only answer was silent snoring and she carefully shook her head before removing the teal dragon from her head and placing him on a patch of moos under a tree. “It’s always the same with you, isn’t it?” she smiled down at him for a moment before walking off to check on a curious cold aura that had entered her home.

Today was indeed a wonderful day.

“Guten Morgen, Jack”

The Winter Spirit smiled “Guten Morgen, Schneewittchen. Are you getting tired of this language again?”

“Again?”, she crossed her arms and leaned against the nearest tree “You’re the only one around here who can speak my native language and you avoided me for the past five years”

“I didn’t mean to avoid you” “You were just avoiding Berk to keep yourself from becoming emotionally scared again because you’ve gotten attached to the first ever dragon rider. And also fell in love with him. Which probably lead you to question yourself if it would even be considered ‘okay’ for you and someone who is hundreds of years younger to be together” “I…”, Jack scratched the back of his head and felt himself blush “Yes… but how do you know?”

“Please, Jack…”, she smiled and nodded her head towards a small flock of dragons above them “A Night Fury getting shot down by a human and then becoming friends with him is something worth talking about. Even for dragons”

“I still can’t believe that you actually learned to speak with dragons”

“Seasonally I have work for like one and a half months in a year and I’ve been here since even before this was known as the ‘Barbaric Archipelago’”, Schneewittchen knocked against the thick trunk of the old oak tree she was leaning on to emphasize her point of how long she had already been here “I have a lot of free time, Jack”

“Then why not leave the archipelago for a change? You’re not banished so nobody can say anything about you travelling around a bit” A small globe formed in Jacks hands. It most likely wasn’t completely accurate but it really didn’t need to be “There’s a ton of places you have never seen”

Schneewittchen frowned at the thought of leaving her assigned area. She hadn’t done that in hundreds of years. For good reason, as she had discovered a few years ago. Her expression became serious “Someone has to be here when you guys aren’t around. Did you notice that another Winter Spirit was here?”

Jack shook his head, slightly confused. Usually Spirits stuck to their assigned areas during their seasons. Only exceptions were when they visited each other, like he and Elsa did. Plus, the Barbaric Archipelago wasn’t the most liked area in the world… for multiple reasons. He couldn’t imagine why another Winter Spirit would come here without his knowledge.

“Well, it looks like he messed around with the weather and snow while I wasn’t looking”, she started fidgeting with her wand “Mostly on and around Berk. Probably why you didn’t notice him. He hasn’t changed at all…”

“… What did he do?” he knew who she was talking about and under ‘normal’ circumstances he only would’ve been annoyed but messing with Berk was not a ‘normal’ thing. Not now.

“Causing avalanches and the collapse of a glacier. He worsened a storm at the beginning of winter… I managed to tone it down a little bit but… I’m not you or Jim so it was still pretty bad”, a thin layer of frost formed under her fingertips “This is the second time I had to chase away that Winter Spirit from our home. Why would he even want to come here, messing with banished spirits and dragons?”

“He doesn’t care about you or Jim… At least I hope he doesn’t”

“Then what is it with him and you? Why target a guardian?”

Jack could easily see that she wasn’t actually worried about the situation. She was calm and had enough confidence in her own abilities as well as in the seven dragons that were closest to her. Plus, she trusted in Jack and Jim being here when they were needed. Someone like Jokul Frosti couldn’t intimidate her, even if he would try. She was annoyed by him though… and the Guardian was sure that that feeling was mutual.

Jack himself felt a mixture of annoyance and anger. This wasn’t Jokul provoking him by endangering children, which he had done many times, even before Jack became a guardian. If Schneewittchen hadn’t told him he probably wouldn’t have noticed it after all. He didn’t have a deep connection with the archipelago that told him if there were weather phenomena that needed his attention. One of the inconveniences of being a seasonal spirit that wasn’t created by one of the Big Four.

“Jack…”, she crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at him “It looks like it’s something I should know about”

Jack shook his head “No. You don’t need to worry about it, I’ll deal with him” He was fairly certain that they would run into each other in the very near future…

“… if that’s what you want”, she sighed but then smiled “Let’s talk about something nice. How’s Elsa doing? Talking to mortals for the first time since she died?”

Relieved that she dropped the topic of the invading winter spirit he sat down with her on the soft gras and they talked about many things, from Elsa and the Vikings to the unusual behavior of some dragons.

“It’s like what happened on Berk changed the whole archipelago. There are dragons out there that I haven’t seen for thousands of years”, her brown eyes were practically glowing “I don’t know where they were hiding but it’s so amazing to finally see them again”

“Some more Night Furys by any chance?” Hiccup had told Jack about how he tried to find more Night Furys and asked him if he had seen any. But the Guardian had to say no but promised to keep an eye out.

“No… Toothless is the only Night Fury I know of right now. Unless there are some outside of the archipelago, I think he’s the only one alive”, Schneewittchen sighed “but I don’t think there are any dragons at all out there”

Jack started to let little ice dragons fly around, much to the enjoyment of a few baby dragons who had as much fun chasing them as Toothless did “… I’ve never seen some anywhere else. I wonder why they only live here when there’s such a big world out there” “It’s their territory. I guess the mortals managed to chase them away everywhere else”

Jack frowned “Or maybe the immortals did… It’s the reason we’re here after all”

The Spring Spirit laughed “It’s a ridiculous reason. They’re not even aware of the mistakes they’ve made but nevermind them”, she got up and stretched “We’ve got some work to do today”

“I know…”, Jack rolled his eyes and earned himself a playful hit on the head “Let’s go and bring Spring”

“I completely forgot about the change of seasons… and I didn’t know that Jack is supposed to do that” Astrid threw one of the little stones to let it skip across the pond. She was pretty sure that Elsa was cheating but she was getting close to beating the spirit nonetheless.

Elsa played around with her pebble a bit “Usually he wouldn’t but the archipelago is very different from… the whole rest of the world actually”

“How so?” Fishlegs was very interested in the spiritworld, which was understandable, and since Elsa enjoyed talking to her new friends, he had learned a lot in the past few hours.

“Well… the archipelago is a pretty big place and in other parts of the world there would be multiple spirits bringing winter or spring but around here you’ve only got Jack and his friends”, she was slightly disappointed about not being able to meet Schneewittchen today since the Spring Spirit had a lot to do “but your weather is a lot easier to manage. In some places you have to babysit your area every single hour of the day to keep it from getting to cold or too warm and ‘oh it’s so hard to have so much work to do’” the last part was spoken in a mocking tone since she had to listen to many spirits telling her that she had no idea about being a spirit since her area was so calm.

Astrid chuckled and skipped another stone “It sounds like the weather is a little child”

“Sometimes it seems like it…”, Elsa watched the stone skip and then sink to the bottom of the pond “If you want to see it like that, the archipelago always had good parents so it’s well behaved and follows when asked nicely”

Suddenly something came to Fishlegs mind “If Jack has been here all this time, he could’ve helped us out with the dragon attacks. There were quite a few lives lost back then…”

“I’m sure he tried whenever he was around but the problem with the dragons is… that they’re dragons”, the Winter Spirit looked over to where Meatlug, Stormfly and Snowcone were playing around with a giant tree branch “They can see Spirits and dragons like the Red Death see us as a threat…”

“So, the dragons would’ve attacked him, and ice and fire aren’t that evenly matched” Elsa nodded at Astrid and sighed “The reason why he’s here…”

Both Vikings looked at her surprised. “How do you mean that?” Fishlegs finally asked, after the older one didn’t continue.

Elsa started fidgeting with her staff “Uhm… I… that’s not really something I should talk about. It’s a bit… It’s just something Jack should tell you” She didn’t have any desire to explain that Jack was officially banished to the Barbaric Archipelago since it would lead to the question of ‘why’ and that was really something she had no right to share with Astrid and Fishlegs without asking her brother first.

Fishlegs looked like he was almost bursting with curiosity, but he didn’t get a chance to ask any further question. Now it was Elsas’ turn to ask “So… What do I need to know about a Deadly Nadder? Aside from ‘it doesn’t listen to what I say’”

“Oh. There’s a lot to know about them” The three walked over to the dragons and Fishlegs began to talk about the many traits, using Stormfly and Snowcone to visualize his explanations. Astrid stood back and just watched. She had heard these things a million times by now and spent enough time with her dragon to not need another reminder about her strengths and weaknesses.

“Stormfly is after Toothless the fastest dragon on Berk”

Elsa giggled nervously “I saw that. Do you think Snowcone is going to be as fast as Stormfly?”

Fishlegs took a moment to compare the two Nadders. Snowcone was slightly smaller but other than that there were no major differences. “With enough training she could be. Stormfly and Astrid have been training for years now so it would take a while for Snowcone to catch up with her in a Dragon Race”

Astrid grinned “It would be interesting racing you and Jack though. In a real Dragon Race, I mean”

The Winter Spirit was slightly confused “Was the race this morning not a ‘real’ Dragon Race?”

“No. Dragon Racing is an actual sport here on Berk with a few additions”, Fishlegs explained “Having a fast dragon doesn’t automatically mean that you will win. We collect sheep for points”

“Sheep? With dragons? That doesn’t sound like much fun… for the sheep”

Astrid waved her hand dismissively “So far they were always fine after the races and the dragons don’t hurt or want to eat them. Usually”

“You should stay and watch one of the races”, suggested Fishlegs and patted Meatlug “We don’t win that often but it’s always a lot of fun”

“And now that it’s going to be Spring, we’ll probably have our next race pretty soon” Astrid added

Elsa smiled at the Vikings’ excitement “I’ll see if I can stay long enough to see it” She was immortal but sometimes there still wasn’t enough time for everything…

The sun was slowly setting and the snow had started to thaw.

Toothless was jumping in every puddle and quickly dodged when Hookfang snapped at him. The Monstrous Nightmare didn’t enjoy getting wet. Snotlout was talking with Gustav about the young Riders’ performance today while Hiccup was giving advice to Dagna, a young girl who was unsure if she had really earned her dragons’ trust yet.

In front of the Great hall were a lot of dragons enjoying the last rays of the sun, a nice dinner or just each others’ company. Hiccup easily spotted his friends’ dragons and so did Toothless and Hookfang who went to greet them while the Vikings started walking up the stairs to the enormous doors. Dagna and Gustav left their mentors to sit with their friends and Hiccup looked around for Astrid, Elsa and Fishlegs. They weren’t sitting far from the entrance together with the twins.

Elsa sat between Astrid and Fishlegs and looked slightly uncomfortable. Hiccup could easily see why. There were a lot of Vikings staring at her and so far, she had only talked to him, his friends, Gobber and a few words of explanations to his father. The only other people on their table were the twins but he could imagine that she felt the stares dig into her back.

Next to him Snotlout straightened his vest and walked confidently towards their friends.

“You remember what Jack said, right?”

“Well, he is not here right now, is he?”

Hiccup just sighed and didn’t bother to remind him which one of the spirits was the threat to Snotlouts’ manhood.

Astrid was the first one to spot them, the rest of the group engulfed in discussion about a half-true story from the twins. “How was todays lesson?”

“Well… nothing caught fire that wasn’t supposed to burn. And with Gustav and Snotlout in the same place that’s a success” Hiccup smiled when he saw Elsa giggle. She looked a bit more relaxed now and when Snotlout started to brag about how much Gustav had learned from him today he saw her eyes sparkle in amusement.

“Great”, Astrid stood up and pulled Elsa with her “Now that you’re here we can get something to eat” While following the girls to the other side of the hall Hiccup listened to Tuffnuts’ retelling of his and Ruffnuts’ most recent mischief. He had stopped feeling responsible for every single troublesome situation the twins got themselves into. As long as they didn’t burn down the village, he found most of their pranks entertaining in one way or the other.

A few minutes later they were all back at their table and Hiccup was still missing someone. “You two won’t kill Jack for being late” Elsa chuckled “Dinner is not over yet, is it? My threat was quite empty anyway. He’s got a lot to do today”

“With what? I thought he just wanted to meet someone”

“He’s meeting up with another spirit to change the season” explained Fishlegs before Elsa could answer. The auburn-haired looked from the winter spirit to his friend but then decided just not to ask since he had been gone the whole day and they had to have talked about something. “How many other spirits are around here? We’ve covered a lot of the archipelago by now and I’ve never seen any”

“The one Jack is meeting today is very… solitary”, Elsa started to explain “And I also suspect that you might not be able to see spirits of other seasons so… You should start believing in the seasonal spirits since they’ll probably show up here sooner or later”

“Believing in invisible people controlling the weather?”, Ruffnut hit her mug hard against her brothers’ helmet “Consider it done”

Snotlout put on a charming smile “It’s going to be hard to believe in something more incredible than you”

Everyone else on the table cringed internally, the twins more obviously than the other three Vikings. Elsa looked very unamused now. She crossed her arms and glared at the black haired teen “That didn’t even make sense… I suggest you shut up before I disable your ability to spread your genes to the next generation” This was not an empty threat anymore. Astrid quickly and carefully laid her hand on the spirits’ now ice-cold shoulder “While that wouldn’t be the worst idea, how about we finish eating and then spent some more time with Stormfly and Snowcone?”

“Yeah…”, Elsa glanced over her shoulder to the other Vikings, quite a few had noticed the drop in temperature and were looking in their direction again “Don’t rush. I’ll just wait outside”

Astrid nodded and smiled while the spirit got up and briskly walked towards the door and out of there sight. Then she glared at Snotlout “Great job, you moron”

“What? It was a compliment”

This time Ruffnuts’ mug hit his helmet with a loud bang “Even Tuff got it after the first threat”

Hiccup just sighed “It’s pretty obvious that she doesn’t like being complimented like that, Snotlout. So please stop. For the sake of your own safety”

The older teen grumbled something inaudible, but it seemed like he finally got the message of ‘No flirting with Elsa’. The rest of the meal was accompanied by Fishlegs telling Hiccup all the things he had learned about the spiritworld today. It was quite a lot, almost enough to fill a whole book.

“No, Fishlegs… We’re not making a ‘Book of Spirits’”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Guten Morgen" ="Good morning"
> 
> Yeah. We're having more Spirits now and the first mention of the language issues.  
> When I tried to pick a character for a Spring Spirit I didn't want to go with what I've seen so far (Which was mostly Rapunzel) So I picked Snow White because of her connection to the animals and the scene where she almost gets stabbed to death. Surrounded by flowers.  
> I decided to give her and her dragons their german names since the original tale comes from this language. She won't talk only in english in this story so I put translations in the end notes. (I won't write long and complicated sentences)  
> My friend asked if Elsa is going to do the same since her fairy tale is also from another country but the thing with Elsa is that she is only inspired by the fairy tale. Frozen is not like Snow White and the seven dwarfs.
> 
> Why does Jack speak Schneewittchens native language?  
> He's a guardian for all children of the world and six hundred years old at this point. I'd imagine he knows a few other languages than just english.


	11. Chapter 11

When they left the great hall, their conversation had changed towards the first dragon race. Astrid teasing Hiccup if he would actually try to beat her this year or ‘hide away’ like a few prior times, the twins laughing about Snotlout bragging to Fishlegs how much better he and Hookfang had gotten.

Before they even got outside Hiccup could hear children laughing but he couldn’t see them past a bragging and backwards walking Snotlout and the twins. Then Snotlout was suddenly gone. The other riders blinked a few times in surprise while their friend slipped, landed on his back, and then slid down the long icy slide that covered half of the stairs, from the hall all the way down to the village. Snotlouts’ yelling stopped when he hit a small ramp at the end of the stairs, soared through the air for a few seconds and landed headfirst in a pile of snow.

The twins had another laughing fit while Astrid and Fishlegs just grinned.

A few children were standing with Jack at the side of the slide, watching patiently as Hookfang pulled his rider out of the snow. Apparently, he was blocking the landing zone because as soon as he was out of the way two kids jumped on the ice, one just sliding in a sitting position and one skating and almost falling.

Hiccup shook his head smiling “I would ask if the answer wasn’t so obvious”

“I wonder if this is against their rules”, Fishlegs looked at the mostly green fields around them “Since it’s supposed to be Spring now”

“Who cares! I wish we could do stuff like this” Ruffnut grabbed her brothers’ arm and took a running start to skate down.

Astrid just shrugged. She couldn’t imagine how this would be a problem “Are you two going to take the boring way down?”

“I wouldn’t call it the boring way-“ but the blond Viking couldn’t get to the end of his sentence before Astrid grabbed him to slide down in front of her. Hiccup quickly took a step back before she could pull him with her too.

Ruffnut and Astrid landed way more elegantly than the boys, but they all landed safe and sound along with the three children that followed them. Hiccup saw a few other Vikings standing around, some looked like they also took the non-boring way down.

“Do you plan on standing there for the rest of the day?!”

The dragon trainer glared playfully down at his boyfriend. He hadn’t been on pure ice since before the fight with the Red Death… but this was probably as safe as playing with snow and ice could be. So, he tried to skate down like the girls did. It didn’t go too well though. For a few moments he could keep himself upright but then the different levels of traction between his boot and prosthetic caused him some difficulties. Before he could fall though Jack was behind him and caught him with one arm around his waist, stopping his descend entirely. “Maybe one of Elsas’ tricks will help” Hiccup was lifted a few inches above the ice, just enough for Jack to create something that could be compared to ice skates. The Viking snorted at the sight “ _Maybe_ you should learn a bit more before doing this again”

The Spirit just grinned and let go “You’re welcome”

It did help. It did not keep Hiccup from performing a very clumsy landing. Astrid helped him back on his feet while Elsa made the ‘ice skates’ disappear again. “Not bad for your first time in five years” Elsa raised her eyebrows at Astrids’ comment “You didn’t skate in the last five years? In a place like this?” “I’ve had a lot to do” he started defending himself but was interrupted by Gustav and two other teens landing right behind him, showering him and the girls in snow again.

“Sorry” Gustav laughed and climbed out of the snow. When Hiccup looked back up to the great hall quite a few other Vikings had gathered at the door, some making their way down the ice-free side of the stairs but he also saw Dagna and three others clearly intending to skate down as soon as there was room for them to land.

The Viking shook the snow out of his auburn hair before looking back at Elsa “How long have you guys been doing this?” “Not that long. But Jack warned everyone who came out of the hall so nobody would accidentally hurt themselves” “And he conveniently missed Snotlout coming out” it wasn’t a question. It was pretty clear to Hiccup that that was Jack teaching Snotlout a lesson. While having fun with the kids. “Do you think your father is going to get mad?” Elsa looked seriously concerned about upsetting the Chief. “Uh… I don’t know. I mean, you did keep part of the way free” “And entertained a lot of people” added Astrid when suddenly the twins landed in the snow for the second time.

“I’m glad so many of you enjoy it. I’ve never done anything like this…” Elsa laughed lightly and then looked up to where Jack was helping a little girl skate down very slowly only to pull her up into the air when one of the younger riders slid down the slide, almost crashing into them “I never thought it would be like this. Being seen by other people than Spirits and the like…”

“Well, we’ll have a lot of other things to do for you on Berk” Astrid nodded towards the dragons who were watching the spectacle from a distance “Tomorrow we should start training” “I don’t really want to fly Snowcone yet though… Even if she can fly on her own, I might be too heavy for her injured leg…”

“Seriously…?”, Jack had landed next to Hiccup, putting the little girl down before giving Elsa a look of disbelief “Do you know how light you are, sis? I sometimes wonder how you’re not getting blown away by the wind”

Elsa blushed and crossed her arms “It’s not that bad…”

“If you don’t want to fly Snowcone yet we can train with Stormfly tomorrow”, Astrid suggested and walked over to her dragon to stroke her neck “You’d be okay with that, wouldn’t you?”

Jack wasn’t quite over the whole weight thing “I guess you need a second opinion” The female Spirit made a squeaking sound in surprise as Jack suddenly lifted her up bridal style just to throw her towards Astrid “Astrid, catch!”

The Viking looked baffled for a second before quickly stretching out her arms to catch the older woman. Then she stood there with her arms still stretched out, holding Elsa like she was nothing “You _are_ freakishly light, Elsa”

“I am already dead, so why does this matter!?”

“You are pretty light too, you know that?” Hiccup mentioned while Jack landed next to him again. “I never said I wasn’t. Elsa has some issues that need work…” Hiccup looked from one spirit to the other “What kind?” “She needs some friends… That are not hundreds of years old”, he chuckled “And Astrid seems like she would be a great friend”

Hiccup scratched the back of his head, not sure if he should say his thoughts out loud or not “But… isn’t that what causes you to…”

“Elsa isn’t like me…”, the white-haired boy simply said and turned away “I still have this slide to take care of… You want to try again?” Hiccup felt somewhat relieved when he saw a glint of mischief in his boyfriends’ eyes. He was afraid he had ruined his mood completely. “I think I’d rather try on a more horizontal surface if you don’t mind”

It was about an hour later when the winter spirits made the slide disappear, much to the disappointment of the children but it was late so they couldn’t have played more on it today anyway. Elsa and Snowcone were staying with Astrid and Stormfly so the boys were alone again. And Toothless took this night as his chance to get back at Jack for pranks and teasing. By repeatedly pouncing on the spirit who tried to get away but more often than not got trapped under black paws. Hiccup was sitting on his bed with his notebook and couldn’t help but compare their fight to a cat playing with a mouse.

“Please don’t break him. I still sorta need him” Hiccup grinned at Jacks’ insulted huff and Toothless warbled before covering the spirits’ chest and face in a lot of Night Fury saliva, ending their ‘battle’, and stepping off him.

“Ew…”, Jack wiped his face with the end of his sleeve “I guess I deserve that for half burying you in snow” Toothless just laid down on his stone, his thirst for revenge satisfied. For now. “Toothless, you know that doesn’t wash out” Hiccup had to laugh at his dragon waving his tailfin as if he wanted to say ‘He’ll survive’. “Well… I’d rather have Toothless drool all over me like that than a Changewing…”, Jack pulled at the collar of his hoodie, it wasn’t drenched but it wasn’t the most comfortable feeling either “Thanks for the help”

Hiccup just tossed him the shirt Jack had worn the night before and grinned “Never take a toy from a dragon. You should remember that for the future”

“That actually sounds like a bad idea. If you wouldn’t be talking about your cat of a dragon” The Winter Spirit still sat close enough to Toothless to receive a smack to the back of his head with the dragons’ tail. “Ow! Come on, Toothless. That was kind of a compliment”

The Viking chuckled “I’d love watch you two banter for the whole night, but Astrid is going to be here for our morning flight tomorrow and the girls want to start training too”

“Do you actually have time for it or do you hope to skip chiefing lessons again?”, Jacks’ voice was muffled for a moment while he pulled his hoodie over his head “I’m probably going to be busy for like… half the day”

“You’re not done with the change of season?”

“You haven’t covered all of the archipelago yet, Hiccup. And neither did I today”

Hiccup frowned “How does this even work. Do you and your friend go around and melt the snow on every island?”

“It’s not only the snow on the ground that makes Winter Winter. We have to change the weather, so it doesn’t start snowing again before the next Winter”, Jack started to explain “And we can’t just tell the Winter weather to change into Spring weather. We need to bring Winter somewhere else”

“Where would you bring… weather?” Hiccup didn’t try to ask how the spirits did this. It would be like asking how Jack was able to create snow.

“The archipelago is closer to the North Pole so we bring the cold weather north while the warmer weather comes up from the south. That’s why we don’t necessarily need to do it together since it’s two different tasks and if we are a few days apart there’s just… no rain or snow in your area”

“Wouldn’t it be enough to bring the warmer weather?”

Jack finished changing before scratching the back of his neck “It would… That’s how it’s done in most parts of the world, the seasons practically push each other around, but it somehow… upsets the weather if you do it that way”

Hiccup slowly got the impression that the weather was something sentient. And he didn’t really like that thought… But now another question crossed his mind “How long have you been doing this?”

“Almost six hundred years. I didn’t start right away since I didn’t know I was supposed to do it”

Hiccup shook his head “That’s not what I meant. How long did you do it here? Around Berk”

“Hm…”, he started tugging at one of his pendants through the fabric of his shirt “I think it’s a whole century soon… I didn’t do it myself the first year, but I was around…”

It was silent for a while, Hiccup looking down at his notebook and Jack fidgeting with his necklace. “If… If this is about the dragon attacks… I really tried, Hiccup…”, he sighed “No. We tried. And we almost got ourselves killed by a bunch of Nightmares and Changewings. It wasn’t even on Berk but-“

“It’s not about the attacks. Not really”, Hiccup looked over where a little doll-stitched Nadder rested on his desk “… Were you around… the night my mom disappeared?” “Your mom?” “Everyone says she died but now I know that dragons aren’t the monsters that we thought they were so… Maybe she didn’t die and is still out there somewhere…”

There was hope and slight desperation in green eyes. Jack wished he could give an answer. “I don’t know if I was around at that time… The Archipelago is big and most of the year I’m not here at all” “What about your friend? Maybe she knows” “Maybe… You can ask her. She wanted to come and pick me up so we can start here on Berk”

Hiccup looked at his notebook again and just nodded. He wasn’t desperately searching for his mother but now that there were people that could know what had happened to her… “Hey”, Jack sat down next to him and smiled “I don’t know if it helps but… Wherever she is, I’m sure Valka is very proud of you” Toothless came over as well and Hiccup looked from one pair of caring eyes to the other “… I really killed the mood, didn’t I?” Jack chuckled and shook his head while Toothless purred and butted his friends’ cheek with his nose.

“There’s always tomorrow, Hiccup. If you need this… you can kill the mood anytime”

‘Tomorrow’ started out dark. Not only because the sun wasn’t up when Hiccup woke up. At first, he didn’t even know what woke him up, it clearly wasn’t Astrid pounding at his door. There were sounds, Toothless walking towards his bed, but that wasn’t it.

It was the cold.

He was living on an island where warm days were rare, so Jacks’ chilly aura never bothered him. But now it was frigid cold in his room and even though it was still dark he could see his breath.

Toothless reached the bed and was first to address the obvious source of the drastic drop in temperature. Jack was so close to the beds’ edge that the dragon was impressed that the trembling spirit hadn’t fallen to the floor yet. It wasn’t the first time the Night Fury saw a human having nightmares, Hiccup almost died in a fire after all, but Hiccup didn’t cry or talk in his sleep. At least Toothless thought that Jack was talking. As a dragon he was only versed in the language that was spoken by the people around him and whatever the spirit was whispering did not belong to it. So, he, and Hiccup who was carefully trying to shake his boyfriend awake, could only assume that it had something to do with the pendants. Since Jack was clutching them like they were some sort of lifeline.

“Jack, come on. Wake up” Hiccup had no idea how to snap someone out of a nightmare. Usually Toothless woke him up whenever he had his bad dreams but that might just be because Toothless was the one who saved him in reality… But Toothless had come up with an idea for Jack too. With his teeth retracted he bit the spirits’ arm, his version of pinching someone, and after receiving no response he quickly pulled back, throwing Jack on the floor in the process. At first it seemed like even that didn’t do anything but then the trembling stopped and when Hiccup kneeled beside him to check if he was okay, Jack was finally awake. Sort of.

Hiccup did his best to ignore the cold as Jack clung to him, still talking in what he could only assume was another language. He was trying to make sense of it while comforting his boyfriend. Toothless curled around them, trying to provide as much warmth as possible. After a while the only sounds left were the black dragons’ purring and Hiccup silently humming a melody he vaguely remembered from his very early childhood. Jack was silent.

He was hiding his face in the crook of Hiccups’ neck and felt… embarrassed? That was the only word he could come up with, but it was hardly enough to describe his current emotional state. He never wanted anybody to see him like this. It had been so long since the last nightmare. Granted, he didn’t really sleep during that time but so far being close to Hiccup had always soothed his mind enough to have a night of dreamless sleep. Or at least without dreams he could remember after waking up.

He kept his eyes closed and just listened to humming and purring. It was nice… to have someone around. Suddenly he felt Toothless literally breathing down his neck. Hiccup chuckled and reached out to scratch the dragons chin till he hit the ‘sweet spot’ and the Night Fury slumped back down with a content sigh. Jack turned his head so he could see Toothless in his peripheral vision and smiled.

“Feeling better?”

“Much better…”, he leaned his head back, against the hand that had started to stroke his hair again, to look up “Thank you. And thank you too, Toothless”

Hiccup sighed in relieve before kissing his boyfriends’ forehead “You had me seriously worried, Jack”

“I’m sorry… I didn’t think I would get a nightmare… with you here”

“What did you dream about?” Now that everything calmed down, curiosity took over. And a slightly alarming thought crossed the Vikings mind “Was it Pitch? Is he around?”

For some reason Jack had to laugh at that “No. Pitch doesn’t cause me nightmares. He works with fear”

“Oh… then…” Hiccup frowned. If it wasn’t a scary dream… “what caused your nightmare? You were crying and talking. In another language, I think”

“I was?” Of course, Jack was aware that he was crying when he had these kinds of dreams but talking… “What did I say?”

The auburn-haired could only shrug “Like I said, it sounded like another language. Either that or it was just gibberish”

Jack fell silent. He could imagine what he might’ve said… and he was glad that his dream had apparently caused him to use her language and not Hiccups. He really didn’t want to go into more detail than he had two months ago…

Outside the sun was slowly rising and tiny rays of golden sunlight made their way into the room. Toothless ears and tail twitched in response and Jack went back into his previous position, not wanting to get up yet. Hiccup sighed but decided to not ask any further questions. For now. Instead he gently ruffled white hair, getting ready to remind his dragon and his boyfriend that they would be dragged outside by a pair of impatient girls soon but then he noticed something. He cocked his head and brushed aside a few strands of hair, then he laughed.

“What?” slightly confused Jack raised his head and Toothless too looked for the source of his friends’ amusement.

“You have a snowflake on your neck”

Jack looked dumbfounded for a second and reached for the spot where he felt Hiccups fingertips circling a spot right below his hairline. Toothless slightly tilted his head to get a good look at the unusually shaped birthmark. It really did look like a snowflake.

Hiccup had a hard time getting over how cute this was but suddenly he noticed something else. Or rather the lack of something else.

The lack of Astrid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took way to long...
> 
> Curse my laziness...


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The german song at the beginning is "With a smile and a song" from the movie.   
> I didn't feel like adding a translation to every line...

„ _Sei vergnügt, sing ein Lied  
und Du fühlst alles kriegt neuen Schwung  
_ _der Kummer entflieht_ “

Schneewittchen arrived way too early on Berk. She hadn’t visited the island in a long time...   
“ _Du wirst wieder jung  
Sei vergnügt, sing ein Lied  
das ins Dasein Dir Fröhlichkeit bringt_”

Some of the animals recognized her as the bringer of Spring, just like they recognized Jack. Dragons and other animalistic inhabitants gathered at the edge of the woods to listen or sing with her.  
“ _denn alles erblüht  
wenn Musik erklingt_”

A little bird landed on Brummbärs’ nasal horn and the Thunderdrum glared at it before shaking it off. Schneewittchen laughed before continuing her song.

“ _Sei nicht gleich verbittert  
wenn's auch mal gewittert_”

Suddenly a second voice joined in, deeper than Schneewittchens childlike voice. A few words sounded off as well since Elsa didn’t actually know how to properly speak german.   
“ _glaub mir, der Sonnenschein  
stellt sich doch bald wieder ein_”

The black-haired girl rose to her feet and took the Snow Queens’ offered hand and the two spirits twirled around each other.

“ _Sei vergnügt, Du wirst sehn  
plötzlich scheint  
Dir die Welt wieder schön  
ein Wunder geschieht  
singst Du fröhlich ein Lied_”

Astrid had seen many weird things, like a glowing dragon and the twins being intellectual due to eel pox, but this… this was a new type of weird. A pleasant weird.

“Astrid! Come on, join us” The Viking shook her head “I have no idea what you just sang about, Elsa”

“You heard me sing yesterday”, Elsa walked over to her and pulled her back into the circle of forest animals and dragons “And there’s no reason to be shy”

“This isn’t about shyness…” “Then let’s go” Elsa smiled before taking Schneewittchens’ hand as well to raise them up in the air.

_“Let it go, let it go”_

The other spirit smiled when recognizing the song and joined in.

_“Can’t hold it back anymore_

_Let it go, let it go_

_Turn away and slam the door_

_I don’t care what they’re going to say”_

Elsa let go of her friends’ hands and twirled on the spot, raising the last patches of snow around them, making every single snowflake glisten in the morning sun.

_“Let the storm rage on,_

_The cold never bothered me anyway”_

Both spirits paused, looking at Astrid.

It wasn’t that she didn’t remember the song… she had never really sung before. Especially not alongside two girls who never seemed to miss a beat or break a note. But was Astrid Hofferson really afraid to be judged by immortals. No.

_“It’s funny… how some distance_

_Makes everything seem small…_

_And the fears that once controlled me”_

Elsa and Schneewittchen both beamed at her and joined back in, leading with Astrid trying to match every note and keep up with the right lyrics.

_“Can’t get to me at all_

_It’s time to see what I can do_

_To test the limits and break through_

_No right, no wrong, no rules for me_

_I’m free!”_

It was then that the Spring spirit noticed additions to their audience. She smiled and held out her hand, beckoning Jack and Hiccup to join them too. The Viking smiled apologetic “Don’t know the song…” “You don’t have that excuse, Jack”

Astrid expected Jack arguing with Elsa but he took one look at her beet red face and grinned “I’ll sing if Astrid continues” Stormfly seemed to agree and gently nudged her rider.

“… I’m going to punch you if anyone starts laughing”

Jack just chuckled “Nobody has laughed so far, so why would we start now?”

The young Viking sighed before taking a deep breath and starting the refrain.

_“Let it go… let it go…”_

The spirits all joined in at the same time.

_“I am one with the wind and sky_

_Let it go, let it go_

_You’ll never see me cry_

_Here I stand and here I'll stay!”_

One boot and the end of a staff hit the ground and the grass under their feet froze over. Schneewittchen and Astrid had to steady themselves for a second, surprised and not prepared for suddenly having ice under their boots. Jack and Elsa continued completely unfazed.

“ _Let the storm rage on_

_My power flurries through the air into the ground_

_My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around_

_And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast_

_I’m never going back,_

_The past is in the past_

_Let it go, let it go”_

Astrids’ eyes widened when she heard Hiccup sing. Quiet, unsure and only the ‘Let it go’ part but his voice was there too. She got snapped out of her thoughts by Elsa grabbing her hands and whirling around with her on the ice.

_“And I'll rise like the break of dawn_

_Let it go, let it go_

_That perfect girl is gone_

_Here I stand in the light of day_

_Let the storm rage on,_

_The cold never bothered me anyway”_

“I did not know that you can sing” Hiccup looked at both Jack and Astrid after everyone had caught their breath.

“Elsa bugged me for like 20 years and she would’ve never shut up about it” “I would’ve shut up if you had been horrible from the start”, she hugged her brother and ruffled his hair “but you weren’t”

Astrid just crossed her arms “You’ve heard me sing before, Hiccup”

“I’m pretty sure we were _all_ drunk and unable to hold a single note at the time”

Schneewittchen giggled. She had seen some Snoggletog celebrations in her time and drunk Vikings really were a sight to behold.

While the others were talking Elsa had started to tug around on the green shirt Jack was wearing “It’s way too big for you” “It’s Hiccups’. And it’s not _way_ too big” “What happened to your hoodie?” Jack nodded towards Toothless who was sitting next to Snowcone “He drooled all over it”

“Oh… Night Fury saliva does not wash out…” “Yeah, Schneewittchen. I know that by now”

“We didn’t even introduce you”, Elsa suddenly exclaimed “Guys, this is Schneewittchen. Bringer of Spring and most powerful spirit of the archipelago”

“Don’t say that…”, the Spring spirit felt her pale cheeks turn red “I’m not…”

“Then you’re at least the spirit nobody should ever piss off” “Jack…”, she just shook her head and then hooked her arm with his “We have to go. Still a lot of work”

“Wait”, while Astrid was still getting over the fact that a fourteen year old girl was supposed to be the most powerful being around her home, Hiccup ignored that fact for now “I need to ask you something”

She smiled “What do you want to know?”

“My mother disappeared during a dragon attack almost two decades ago…”, he paused when he saw her expression darken “… Do you know what might’ve happened to her?”

Schneewittchen didn’t answer him right away. Instead she looked up at Jack “Was hast du ihm gesagt?” *What did you tell him?*

Jack felt a bit bad for shutting everyone out of their conversation but if his friend deemed it necessary… “Gar nichts. Nur dass ich nicht das ganze Jahr hier bin“ *Nothing. Only that I’m not here all year long*

„Du weißt, dass ich darauf keine Antwort geben kann. Selbst wenn ich es wüsste“ *You know that I can’t answer this. Even if I knew*

“Du hast mir nie erklärt warum du es nicht kannst“ *You never explained to me why you couldn’t* Jack looked over to Hiccup and the others, who all had a very confused look on their face. Elsa was a little bit less confused and seemed to try to piece together what they were talking about.

Schneewittchen sighed and turned to face the young Viking again “I’m sorry, Hiccup. I don’t know… but even if I knew I couldn’t tell you” she saw him tense up and quickly continued “I have no doubt that your mother would be able to achieve what you did, train a dragon, allowing her to come back if she wanted and… if she still is alive somewhere. All I could do is go visit her myself and talk to her”

“Without telling me?!” Hiccup didn’t mean to yell. But her words to him in addition to ones she just exchanged with his boyfriend irritated him more than he thought. They were already hiding something from him. And he did not understand why.

“Listen to me, Hiccup… Sometimes knowledge is what hurts us most, nobody knows this better than a spirit”, she didn’t smile, just looked him straight in the eyes, determined to make him understand “Everyone has their own tomorrow, one way or the other, even if it’s death. And there are reasons that cause someone to not being able to spend it with the ones they love the most. _If_ any of us ever finds your mother alive, we will find out why she isn’t able, and we will try to resolve whatever keeps you apart. But I won’t come here to give hope for something that might never happen”

The animals started to retreat into the forest when Schneewittchen sat down on the purple Thunderdrums’ back “Spend time with the people you have around you now. They won’t be here forever”

They stood at the edge of the woods for so long they could feel the slight breeze getting warmer.

It was only three riders and their dragons, standing in uncomfortable silence. Until Hiccup took off with Toothless, Astrid and Elsa on Stormfly behind him with Snowcone beside them.

No one knew what else this day would bring.

“If you want her to go into another direction you have to tell her!” Astrid had to yell over the wind. She had Stormfly right next to Snowcone, who really seemed to enjoy having a little race with the other Nadder. The spirit on her back thought otherwise “That’s easy for you to say!” “Shift your weight to show her” Elsa didn’t have much weight to shift around to show her dragon which way she wanted her to go.

Hiccup and Toothless were watching them from above. It wasn’t like Elsa didn’t follow Astrids’ advice, Snowcone literally didn’t seem to notice the spirits efforts. Only when she leaned so far to the right that she slipped and almost fell off, colliding with the Nadders’ wing in the process. A while later they all landed and Hiccup suggested loosening the belts that held Snowcones’ saddle in place, so the whole saddle would slightly move with Elsa. Which should be a bit more noticeable. He did not want her to try it immediately though since, unlike Toothless saddle, there was nothing to attach a harness that would keep Elsa from slipping again and possibly falling off.

The training ended with Hiccup taking the saddle back to Gobbers forge, leaving the girls and their dragons to spend the day without him again. He’d probably end up making a few more changes than just add a harness.

Seasonal Spirits were divided in four groups and allegedly every group had some character traits in common. Jack had heard them twice, from Jokul and hundreds of years later from Bunny. And the only season those two would agree upon was Autumn being the most calm and accepting.

Jack was kind of a black sheep in his own season and it was just his luck that a few Autumn spirits around the archipelago were just the same.

He and Schneewittchen had split up due to some very unnatural occurrences on the northern edge of their territory. Usually there were no hurricanes drifting south at this time of year… Schneewittchen couldn’t do much about a storm of this magnitude so Jack had sent her back to her island to check if anything else had just appeared out of nowhere. The past few hours had already been tiring so the Spring spirit insisted on one of her dragon friends staying with Jack, just in case he needed to rest. The next islands were miles away so a dragons’ back would be the only possible place to do so.

Slowing down a hurricane was like trying to move a boulder the size of two Norths.

Finally, the storm died down, the wild waves calmed, and Jack felt like sleeping for the rest of the week…

“Having fun, Frost?”

“I don’t know…”, he turned around and glared at the two spirits floating right on the archipelagos border “I only have experience with freezing. Is it _fun_ to get spun to pieces?”

The female spirit chuckled and grinned “It’s a once in a lifetime experience. You should try it”

“No, thanks. How about you two go and play somewhere else”

“I always thought you Guardians love games”, the other Autumn spirit kept tossing and catching a golden ball with one hand, a smug look on his face “Or are you all tired out by managing the dragons’ nests weather all on your own? Surprised you still didn’t get burned to a crisp”

“Maybe the dragons are afraid of rocks”

Their giggling started to give Jack a headache “In Mims’ name… I really don’t want to deal with you right now, okay?” He looked down and saw something shoot out of the waves below and grinned “Incoming fire!”

For a second the spirits looked dumbfounded. There were no dragons so far out. Then they screamed in terror when a Shockjaw suddenly was at eyelevel. One roar and a warning shot later there was no trace left of the two meddling spirits.

“Thanks, Happy… Maybe they’ll stay away for a few years now”

The blue dragons seemed happy with himself and flew a few tight circles around the Winter spirit. Jack laughed. “No playing tag now. I’m glad if I make it back to the island”

Happy stopped and tilted his head. Right. That was why he was here. He flew under Jack, offering a ride back to their friends. There was still one task left.

There was a cave on Schneewittchens’ island that reached several feet below the sea level.

The temperature was uncomfortably hot, they were almost right under an active volcano after all. It was like a miracle that there was breathable air. None of her brothers enjoyed staying down there for even a minute and neither did Schneewittchen herself but it was the only place where she could keep her most priced possession. Hidden from view and kept in balance from the natural heat around it, a large crystal sat at the deepest point of the cave. Over the span of several hundred years it had grown to a height of five feet and two feet at its widest point.

The blue and green swirls of light intensified when the two spirits laid their hands on the warm and smooth surface. Red, gold, green and blue flurried inside the crystal but calmed down once the stream of Winter- and Spring-energy stopped.

“If it keeps growing, you’ll have to take it outside” Jack leaned against his staff and watched closely as their power seemed to inflate crystal, making it grow at least two inches.

Schneewittchen frowned and crossed her arms “We can’t do that. They’ll notice it the moment we take it above sea level… I just wish the volcano was a strong enough substitute for Summer”

“Let’s not talk down here… I feel like I’m melting”

The way back up was a dark, narrow tunnel only illuminated by the glow of the spirits’ staff and wand. They walked in silence until they finally reached the surface where they were welcomed by a light rain. “Still missing some real Summer energy…”, Schneewittchen sighed when she settled down on a flat rock on the sandy shore, near the caves’ exit “What’s been bothering you, Jack? Are you mad at me?”

Jack sat down and leaned his back against the dark rock “Why would I be mad at you?”

“I feel like I upset Hiccup… quite a bit”

“… probably. But I can’t argue with you. I’m sure he understands, so don’t worry too much”

“According to you and Jim, I always worry too much” she giggled, and he grinned “It’s like your curse”

“It’s the curse of always worrying that some spirit will be thrown in here, panic and agitate the wrong dragons”

Jack cocked his head “I didn’t panic”

“Yes. And you still almost got eaten in the first few minutes” she deadpanned and crossed her arms.

They were both quiet for a moment, remembering the day they first met, before Jack decided to drastically change the topic “Schneewittchen? Did you notice anything… strange happening to the people of the archipelago?”

“Strange?”, she frowned “This is a place full of Vikings and dragons. You need to be more specific than that”

“Like… people just dying for no reason. No sickness or injuries”, Jack scratched the back of his head and looked towards the horizon “It’s been happening all over the world for more than a year now. But nothing is wrong on Berk, so I wondered if you or the dragons noticed anything on other islands”

“No… nothing that I know of. But I’m only here most of the time and the dragons don’t get that close to a lot of the other tribes”

“Hm…” he couldn’t help but feel a bit relieved. After more than a year there should’ve been some reaction from the human population, so maybe there really wasn’t anything around here. But then… why was the archipelago not affected?

“Jack?” Now Schneewittchen looked worried. Wayward spirits and surprise hurricanes weren’t worrying because they knew how to deal with it but this… “How many?”

“Too many to still count them… Mim says we need to do something to stop it or…”, he paused and looked up at the sky where the sun had only recently passed its zenith “Or the world might end”

Her eyes widened “End? As in… no more life? Or will the whole planet explode?”

“I don’t know… But we won’t need to find out”, Jack got to his feet “We’ll find out what it is and stop it”

He didn’t stay much longer after that.

Schneewittchen promised to keep an eye out for anything unusual and tell Jim about it, as soon as he would show up. The archipelagos’ Autumn spirit was, much like Jack, not there most time of the year. He was also hard to track down which was why Jack hadn’t talked to him yet.

For now, the Guardian headed back to Berk to spend some more time with his friends before he needed to get back to work.

He would go look for Valka. After he made sure the world was safe for the people who he knew were alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've researched a lot for this fanfiction. The most frustrating thing to me is still the height of the characters because I couldn't find a legitimate source for Rotg.  
> Now I had to find out if these guys can sing (aka if their VAs can sing) and I have to say... Elsa and Jack would make a great duet. And Snow Whites' voice doesn't fit in there at all...
> 
> Originally Elsa was going to sing her song in danish because that's where 'her' fairy tale is from but I wanted Astrid to sing (for some reason...) so... That was that.


	13. Chapter 13

Hiccup didn’t really think that his idea would work or was a good idea in the first place. He just wanted to be alone with his thoughts for a little while.

Astrid gave him an hour before she came and dragged him out of the forge and to the cove where he had hidden Toothless years ago. The blond Viking placed Snowcones’ saddle on a fallen tree “We’re not going to use this for now”

“Why?”

Fishlegs had joined the girls while Hiccup was away and had come up with a little theory “Because we don’t know how the dragons perceive the spirits. They can obviously see them but Snowcone should be able to feel Elsa on her back, no matter if she is lighter than…” he struggled for a moment to find a good comparison. “Lighter than a human my height should be?” Elsa seemed annoyed by the constant reminder of being way lighter than she looked. It was a wonder that she even had a physical body so who knew what it was made of. Fishlegs smiled apologetically while Astrid pointed to the rope around Snowcones’ torso “We all started flying without a saddle so we’re trying it this way now”

It made a little bit sense to Hiccup but “For what exactly do you need me then?”

“Are you still mad about what happened this morning?”

“I’m not mad”, the auburn-haired teen sat down next to his dragon and pulled out his notebook “… I just don’t see why…”

Elsa smiled softly “She didn’t mean to upset you, Hiccup. Every spirit would’ve given you the same answer. The first years of every spirit are dominated by pain. We all died, and most of us died young. Imagine you would die right now, somewhere out there. Nobody would know what happened when you just don’t return or arrive where you said you would go” She closed her eyes for a moment and then looked up at the cloudy sky “But of course you know what happened. You’ll see everyone you love and care about run around and trying to find you, see worry fade to desperation, hope turning into despair. Not being able to stop and tell them, and even if you could, how would they take that… Eventually they’ll go through all the stages of grief and return to their normal lives, but they’ll still miss you. And then you’ll see them all die, one after the other. From sickness, old age or far worse…”, the seemingly young woman looked back at him, her smile turning sad “A spirit has an eternity to get over it, and while you do miss your mother, you’ve accepted that she isn’t here and might never be. Your time is limited, that’s why she doesn’t want you to think about it more than you would without knowing about us”

It was silent for a while, the three Vikings processing what Elsa had just dropped on them.

Death wasn’t something unusual for them, most of their childhood had been dominated by a war against giant fire breathing reptiles and there wasn’t exactly peace between the Hooligans and all other tribes of the archipelago, but their believes about what happened after death did not consider the things the Spirit just told them.

Astrid frowned, remembering Elsas’ words from a few days ago.

~ I… did get, among other things, the ability to just vanish and appear somewhere else and the privilege of a frozen heart. Unable to get attached to a mortal being so I would be able to not care about the lives that are lost in the cold~

~I do care… I always try to reduce the damage as much as possible. Getting people to seek shelter in time, even if they can’t see me… But it doesn’t hurt to see them die…~

Somehow, she had assumed that that meant that Elsa didn’t feel the pain of loss at all but of course… she had to have family and friends before she died. “… Are you over it?”

“Hm?”, Elsa was petting Snowcone, who had come over to rub her cheek against her riders’ arm “Over what?”

“What you just said” Astrid started to feel a little bit uneasy when her friend started to smile again, way to bright for the situation “Of course. It’s been like 600 years and I’m not one of those sorry little sprites who dwell on it forever and then try to take their frustrations out on humanity”, obviously nervous she started scratching her dragons’ neck “I’m not… We wanted to go flying, right?” She didn’t wait for a response and immediately climbed one the white-blue Nadders’ back and almost fell off again when the dragon took off.

The three Vikings watched her for a moment before Astrid mounted Stormfly

Hiccup and Fishlegs stayed on the ground and watched the two Nadders fly above the cove.

“This was… slightly disconcerting” Fishlegs finally voiced his thoughts.

Hiccup just nodded. It was… and something told him that there wouldn’t get any further explanation about, what he assumed was Elsa talking about herself.

“She is right in general though” “… I know”

A few hours later they had moved from the cove to the coast. The air had gotten noticeably warmer and they had all taken a break to fish and eat with their dragons.

“Are you sure you don’t want any?”

“No, you can eat it. I don’t need anything right now”

Astrid raised an eyebrow at her “You haven’t eaten since you got here”

“Because I don’t need to. Food helps me to get energy back, but I didn’t use my powers since this morning so sleeping for a few hours tonight will fix that” Elsa smiled.

“So, clinging to a dragon for dear life didn’t exhaust you at all?” “Not that much”

Hiccup snickered “I didn’t think I would meet someone that’s more energetic than Jack”

“Believe me, Hiccup…”, the Winter Spirit had to cringe at some old memories “He is way more energetic than me. He’s just using his powers more than me. Especially right now”

Fishlegs was curious again “What would happen if you would use so much energy?”

“Hm…”, Elsa twirled the end of her braid between two fingers “I would probably need to eat a bunch of food and sleep for a while. Jacks’ and my powers aren’t as comparable as they might seem and-“ she froze and her eyes widened.

After almost a minute of silence the Vikings and even the dragons were getting nervous. “Elsa?” At first it seemed like Astrids’ voice had snapped the spirit out of it, but when she finally moved again, she wasn’t looking at any of the teens. She shot a glare up at the mountains before grabbing her staff and running over to her dragon. Snowcone too was looking up at the mountains and before the young Vikings could say anything dragon and spirit were up in the air, heading for the still snow-covered mountaintops.

Riding a dragon was still no easy task for Elsa, but at least she didn’t have to tell her dragon where to go this time. They had the same destination.

As they got closer a large mass of snow and ice started to cascade down the side of the mountain. After a few minutes it did start to change direction slightly slowing down a bit as well. But not enough. “Alright… Don’t get startled, Snow…” Usually magic was translucent, almost invisible and unnoticeable, but usually there was no need to stop an entire avalanche in its’ descend. Elsa let go of the rope to hold her staff with both hands. Snowcone was still moving forward so this wasn’t a position she wanted to hold for long.

The tip of her staff started to glow for a few seconds before a bolt of light shot out of it. Snowcone squawked in surprise and Elsa had to quickly hook her arm under the rope to not fall off. Thanks to the startled dragon noises Jack finally noticed that someone else was around. It did not save him from being pushed to the side by the force of Elsas’ magic when it passed him to bury itself in the mass of snow and ice that he was trying to bring to a stop.

For a moment nothing happened, aside from Jack almost falling to the ground before getting caught by his sister and dragon. Then there was a silent crackling and the avalanche slowed to a stop. Jack had one arm around Elsas’ waist while she tried to direct Snowcone away from the mountainside “Come on, girl. We should get some dis-“ Her magic finishing its’ job cut the blond off as the snow masses exploded into billions of tiny snowflakes, covering the surrounding area and everyone in it with a layer of snow.

Not too far away Fishlegs, Astrid and Hiccup were rubbing snow out of their eyes and faces while their dragons shook themselves to get rid of the unexpected cold. The snowflakes were so small that they melted almost immediately leaving the humans with damp hair and clothes. “What… was that?” Fishlegs had a quite fearful expression while Astrid was very impressed. Hiccup didn’t waste time with any of that and just followed the white Nadder who was landing in a small clearing.

When Toothless landed, Snowcone was sitting on the ground with Elsa still on her back and Jack sitting in the grass with his side leaning against white scales.

Elsa looked furious and for a second Hiccup felt frozen by the frigid temperature but then he quickly unhooked his prosthetic, before it would actually freeze in place, and hurried over to the two spirits.

“Where?!”

Jack was quite close to passing out after changing the season, stopping a tornado, giving up a good portion of his remaining energy to Schneewittchens’ crystal and now this whole ordeal, but he had to calm her down somehow… “Gone, Ellie… you already did it…” His attention shifted from his, not at all calmed down, sister to Hiccup who was kneeling next to him now. This day really wasn’t going like he wanted it to…

Astrid and Fishlegs arrived at the clearing when Jack was already in the taller Vikings’ arms, weakly giggling at being scolded to not say he was fine, when he was clearly about to pass out. Elsa had stepped away from them after noticing that her fury was freezing the water droplets in Hiccups’ hair and also covering her dragons’ scales in a thin layer of ice. She did not seem like she was anywhere near calm.

Fishlegs cast a nervous look towards the mountains while Astrid walked over to Elsa. What had caused this? And was it still around?

There was a strip of frozen gras behind Astrids’ house.

Elsa had been pacing back and forth for a long time now. Having food in her system was an unusual feeling that she tried to ignore for now. For her it was the preferable option right now. Jack didn’t really have a choice but to sleep away the next hours but the Snow Queen was still too angry for that.

“Elsa… I have to respectfully ask you to calm the fuck down already…” Schneewittchen slowly had enough of this day. Meddling Autumn-spirits, the crystal acting up after Jack left… and now this. He couldn’t have shown up while Elsa wasn’t here, could he…

“I am trying!”

“She is a lot calmer than half an hour ago” “Yeah… It was way worse” Fishlegs agreed with Astrid. Elsa was still a scary and intimidating sight, but she had calmed down a bit.

The Spring Spirit sighed “I know it’s an unusual tactic with mortals around and all that… but how about you just talk about it?”

“About what?”

“Everything”, Schneewittchen gestured to the two Vikings, “I’m pretty sure they’d want to know what’s going on, right?”

Elsa stopped pacing when she saw her friends nodding. She was not fully convinced though. “We’re not supposed to talk about…”

“Not talking about other spirits is meant to protect those spirits” Schneewittchen deadpanned.

The Winter Spirit felt her eye twitch. Sure, that wasn’t the only reason but the mere thought was… “… Jokul Frosti”

Fishlegs was confused while Astrid wasn’t too surprised, given Elsas’ reaction the other day. “You mean the one who’s part of our mythology?”

“Yes!”, Elsa took a deep breath and lowered her voice again, “That one… He caused that avalanche and apparently it wasn’t the first time” She shot Schneewittchen an accusing glare, still mad about being left in the dark about the fact that Jokul had been in the archipelago in the past.

“It was almost five years ago and there wasn’t really a way for me to contact you. And I presume Jack didn’t tell you because you always react like this when it comes to this guy?”

“What did he do back then?” Astrid could think of a few disasters in the past years that involved snow or the cold.

Schneewittchen looked over at Elsa, clearly trying to judge if the spirit would fall into another fit of rage over this, before answering “You were caught in almost all his meddling. Namely an avalanche and a snowstorm a few days after. As well as the collapse of a glacier”

Astrid frowned. She remembered all those occasions. “How do you know we were there?”

“I feel it when something new enters the archipelago. Or just something that doesn’t belong here”, the black-haired girl explained “I only saw the aftermath of the avalanche and couldn’t catch him back then. And once a storm is brought on the way it’s hard to stop it, especially since I have little to no control over wind and snow. I tried to weaken it, but you saw how well that worked out…”

“That storm could’ve been worse?” Fishlegs vividly remembered the heavy storm right at the beginning of winter. If they didn’t have their dragons back then, they would’ve died of hypothermia out in the woods.

“Yes…”, Schneewittchen tugged at a strand of her hair “The glacier… was a brazen move…”

“We thought the glacier collapsed because we triggered a trap?”

“No. He made me chase him all over the archipelago that day, being more of a nuisance than an actual threat”, she gritted teeth “We were both exhausted when we got here, he had enough energy to trigger the collapse but I didn’t have enough to stop it. Luckily you all got out in time”

Astrid felt anger rise in her. What had seemed like bad luck or traps had actually been someone trying to hurt her friends? “Anything else…?”

“No. If the mental image helps you to calm down…”, the Spring Spirit crossed her arms and looked to the side “Before we could see that you were fine he was gloating over his ‘victory’ and I managed to get close enough to… kick him where it hurts guys the most. And then he fled” She seemed embarrassed about resorting to violence in such a way, but it really did seem to help. Elsa was shocked silent for a second before she started laughing while Astrid smirked.

There was still a question Fishlegs was highly concerned about “But… Why all of that? Is he angry at us?”

“Possibly. But please…”, Schneewittchen sighed, “Do not think of him as a higher being that deserves worshipping. He’s just like Elsa, Jack and me. Just a dead man who happened to come across people who could see him. It has happened a lot in the past. Some can handle it, some cannot”

Elsa scoffed with a disgusted look on her face “And he definitely can’t”

“Still. Why us and why then and now?”

Schneewittchen could only shrug at Fishlegs question “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him before Jack came here”

Three heads turned to Elsa who was twirling the end of her braid again. Now that she wasn’t furious anymore she started to wonder that too… “I don’t know either… Jack is probably the only who can answer that but…”

“He won’t?” the Spring Spirit sighed when Elsa nodded, slightly annoyed.

“We don’t know that until we ask” and Astrid wouldn’t let it go until she got an answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this chapter was... very frustrating for many reasons...   
> Usually my only excuse for not updating is writers block or simply being lazy but this time... I had a lot of this chapter already written but then my PC decided to screw me over and I lost it!  
> So most of this chapter is version two.  
> Another frustration is me wanting to properly introduce a character but I can't do that yet so I just have him be a dick from the background. God... it's gonna be a lot more chapters till I can finally do that...


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... 2020 almost over, huh?
> 
> Wasn't a great year, to be honest... So, as probably every creator of any kind I hope that my writing (not only this one) was at least a distraction from all the bad things that happened.
> 
> Never forget to look at the bright side, 2020 had those too. Somewhere.
> 
> I think the next chapter of this is gonna come out in 2021 (even though it's already written since like... even before I posted the first chapter and only needs editing)
> 
> Merry Christmas (to everyone who celebrates it) and happy holidays.  
> I wish you a good start for 2021.

When Jack woke up, he wasn’t nearly as agitated as Elsa.

Or maybe he was and was just still too tired to show it. His plans on spending time with his friends had been foiled by the spirit he despised the most (and some autumn spirits). He had reasons to be mad, but almost no energy for it.

He knew that Schneewittchen felt bad about it, since he would’ve probably been capable of stopping that avalanche with Elsas’ help and not feel like he needed to sleep the next to weeks away. Not that he could do that anyway. He needed to leave the next day.

Astrid wasn’t happy about that. She didn’t want him to leave without having her questions answered. Hiccup didn’t want him to leave either, but he knew from the start that Jack wouldn’t have much time to spent.

Maybe his winter duties were put on hold for three months but his duties as a guardian weren’t. Plus, there was still this problem about people mysteriously dying all around the world… that everyone almost forgot about.

After a few hours of mostly talking about various things, a lot of them dragon related, everyone turned in for the night to get some sleep, even Elsa. Nobody, except Jack, knew where Schneewittchen went but nobody was really worrying about her.

“I’m sorry…”

Hiccup chuckled and ruffled Jacks’ white hair “I knew what I signed up for”

“Not only for that”, the spirit had his head resting on the Vikings left shoulder and played with the little braids in his hair “You got almost killed because of me… while I was avoiding you at all cost…”

“I’m pretty sure I almost died a lot more times without spiritual interference”

“Like testing your flightsuit?”

“Maybe…”

Toothless gave a sound of annoyance from his stone bed as if he wanted to remind Hiccup how many time he had to be saved by his dragon because he did some stupid things, like holding up a iron spear during a thunderstorm.

It was silent for a little while, with everyone almost dozing off, before Jack spoke again “You didn’t tell anyone about what happened last night? Elsa would’ve gone on about it for at least an hour”

“I didn’t have a reason to tell them” Hiccup simply said. By now he knew that there were a lot of things Jack didn’t want to talk about. Like he never told him about Schneewittchen and Elsa, or any other spirit. They just showed up on their own, and from what Elsa told them that was just how things were handled. Spirits just didn’t talk about each other to people when one of them had never personally met those people.

Maybe there was a similar reason for the nightmares so he would accept it. He was worried, but he couldn’t force Jack to talk about them.

“I don’t want anybody to see me like that. It just worries everyone for no reason…”

Hiccup was about to say that the spirits’ mental state was a good reason for that, but he stayed silent. They were just nightmares. He had them from time to time too.

“Can you…”, Jack felt himself blush out of mainly embarrassment “If that happens again…”

“Don’t let anyone see?”

“Yeah…”

Hiccup smiled and looked over to the pair of bright green eyes, still watching them in the darkness “I think we can do that” He just hoped there would be no need to.

_“So, you’re happy now”, her voice was silent and monotonous, blue eyes completely empty._

_Jack was shaking so bad he was surprised he was able to stand._

_“He’s so lucky… to be alive”_

_He was frozen in place, forced to look at her face. Shifting between being burned, frozen, clawed off… The same thing was happening with the rest of her body._

_“If only you cared about me”_

_“I- I did-“ he was hardly able to speak. He felt like something was keeping him from breathing._

_“You left me behind”_

_“N… o…”_

_“Without anyone to keep me safe”_

_Jack felt hot tears rolling down his cheeks “I- so… ry…” His head hurt and was starting to feel like it was spinning._

_“If you cared… You would’ve been there and saved me”_

_“I did care!” he fell to his knees, hands ripping at his hair and finally shaking off the suffocating feeling “I still care!”_

_“… How can you call yourself a Guardian?”_

_His fingers slipped out of his hair, taking a few strands with them. How… could he call himself a Guardian…_

_“Jack”_

_He couldn’t even protect his friend… How was he supposed to be one of the-_

_“ **Jack!** ”_

_He blinked. That… was a different voice. Suddenly a sharp pain shot through his shoulder_ and his eyes shot open.

Toothless felt the door push against his side and continued to give his best and loudest dragon-snore-impression. Impression since he didn’t know how he sounded when he snored. Or if he snored at all.

“Hiccup? Is everything alright?” Stoick sounded concerned and confused at being locked out of his sons’ room all of a sudden.

“Everything’s fine, dad. Toothless just fell asleep in front of the door”, Hiccup felt Jack claw at his shirt and hugged him tighter, pressing the Spirits’ face to his chest, trying to muffle any more pained wheezes or sobs “We… We’ll see you at the great hall later”

Stoick grumbled, not satisfied with his sons’ answer at all, but he had a whole village to care for and Hiccup was old enough to handle whatever was happening in his own room. “See you then”

As soon as the front door closed Toothless sat up and smacked his tongue against his palate. He was not snoring. He would’ve noticed a feeling like the one he had in the back of his throat right now. Hiccup let out a relieved sigh and loosened his grip on the smaller male. “You know… I don’t think my dad would tell anyone if we asked him too”

“It’s not… that I distrust your dad…” his voice was still shaky, like the rest of him. The younger one gently rubbing his back and Toothless’ silent purring slowly calmed him down. He wasn’t alone with his nightmares…

“I get that you don’t want to bother anyone with your dreams but I know about them”, Hiccup laid his hands on Jacks’ shoulders and pushed him back so they could look each other in the eyes “And nothing bothers me more than doing this without you talking to me about them. I just had to bite you to get you to wake up”

Jack looked at the clear mark on his shoulder and was glad that Hiccups’ shirt was too big for him. Otherwise that mark would probably be in a harder to hide place… Now he just had to put his hoodie on, and nobody would ever see it.

“Jack. Everyone has nightmares and I don’t believe that ignoring them will make them go away”

The Spirit shook his head and smiled “No… I’ll talk to Sandy when I get back to the North Pole. I promise”

Hiccup wasn’t happy about this, but he nodded “Okay... Let’s go and meet up with the others” The Guardian of Dreams was probably most capable of helping with bad dreams anyway…

“So, you can feel that there is a storm coming to your area”, Fishlegs looked at Elsa with a mixture of fascination and admiration “Even though you are miles away from it?”

“Yes”, the Snow Queen gave everyone an apologetic smile, especially her dragon “We would love to stay longer… But I need to keep that storm in check. Make sure that nobody else is messing with it too”

“But we’ll visit again soon. And you”, Jack patted Snowcones’ cheek who looked at the spirits with the cutest puppy eyes Elsa had ever seen on a living being “stay here and keep an eye on Hiccup and the others for us”

“And what important thing are you going to go do? Start another snowball fight?” Snotlout had been Jacks’ favorite target in the past days, which was backed up a lot by the twins.

The white-haired Spirit leaned against his staff and smiled “Remember the time the ice broke under your weight back when you were eight years old and chasing chickens around?”

Snotlout looked slightly confused “Uh… that never happened”

“You’re welcome”, Jack gave the Viking a mocking bow “That’s one of the things I’m gonna go and do”

Snotlouts’ dumbfounded face caused quite a few of the Riders to laugh or giggle but before any more exchanges could happen Stoick walked over to them. Elsa smiled brightly at the bearded man and held her hand out to shake his “Goodbye, Chief Stoick. And thank you for your hospitality” Jack just smiled and nodded in agreement while Elsa endured the Vikings’ handshake, which was way firmer than she expected. “You two are always welcome here”

Two months ago, Jack had already made it very clear that he wasn’t in any way somebody who deserved any better treatment or more respect than any ‘normal’ person on Berk and Elsa was happy about not being treated differently. Any more good-byes were cut short when the northern lights suddenly stretched across the morning sky.

“This is an unusual time…”

“No complex explanation for this one, Fishlegs”, Jack gripped his staff tighter “Just means I have to meet up with someone” Elsa and Hiccup gave him worried looks but he just shouldered his bag and smiled “See you all soon” The wind picked up but before leaving the Guardian paused, already hovering a few inches above the ground. Then he grinned, turned around and pulled Hiccup to him to kiss his cheek. “Stay safe… All of you” With that he beamed at a perplexed Stoick and finally vanished in the direction of the northern lights’ source.

“Ah. You stay here”, Elsa quickly wrapped her arms around Snowcones’ neck and pulled the dragon towards the blushing Hiccup “Be moral support for Hic” She winked at the young Viking and then vanished in a cloud of snow.

Hiccup stared at the now vacant spot for a few seconds, still blushing and hearing the twins laughing in the background, then he looked up at his father whos’ eyebrows almost touched his hairline. “I guess… I should’ve told you sooner”

Jack decided to enter Norths’ workshop through the skylight above the globe. He was right behind Sandy who greeted him before floating down towards Bunnymund at the fireplace. The Winter Spirit stayed up by the globe for a moment, looking at the lights. He was supposed to protect every single one of them…

When he landed next to Sandy, he noticed the little elves scurrying around with plates of cookies and little cups filled with eggnog, offering them to the three present guardians. Jack laid his staff on his shoulder and walked over to Bunny who was warming his feet. “Hey Kangaroo. Had a peaceful Easter?”

“Heh. Thanks to you forgetting about it”

The Spirit grinned “I’ll make up for it next year” which earned him a punch to his arm and a warning glare from the Easter Bunny. He knew that Jack couldn’t ‘ruin’ Easter in all parts of the world, but the younger guardian still took pleasure in making the search for his eggs a bit more challenging for the kids.

Sandy just smiled fondly and shook his head about the other twos’ bantering.

A few minutes later North and Tooth entered the Globe room, and everyone received a hug from the excited fairy.

“I hope you didn’t just invite us to eggnog and cookies, mate”

“Oh no, no. Tooth came to me with idea and we both decided that it’s time for a little get together”, North placed a fairly big chest on the table and then rubbed his hands, smiling at his fellow Guardians “Seeing if there’s anything new”

“Not from me…”, Bunny crossed his arms and stared up at the Globe “Found nothing… But it didn’t get worse either”

Jack frowned “I didn’t find anything either but… I noticed something while I was visiting a few islands” Sandy raised his hand and the symbols above his head were fast but readable and the white-haired Guardian nodded.

Tooth looked surprised “It didn’t happen on islands?”

“It doesn’t look like it” The only place Jack was sure about was the Archipelago but if Sandy noticed it too…

“So, it affects all continents…”, thoughtfully North stroked his beard “but not islands”

“That is actually more confusing than helping…” the pookas’ ears were twitching, deep in thought as well.

Sandy continued signing and Tooth sighed “If it is… How would we do something against it? There are no symptoms” “Besides ‘death’” Jack added grimly. There was no way of knowing…

After a little while of discussing and not reaching any helpful conclusion North pulled out a world map and let Sandy and Jack mark the areas they believed were not affected.

“We’ll expand when we know more. Now”, North turned to the chest and pushed it open “Tooth asked me to build these for us. For easier contacting”

First Jack thought it was a compass but after Tooth and North handed the little objects out to their friends, he saw that it was far from it. The silvery disk was the size of his palm with a hexagon engraved in its middle. On the outer rim of the disk were four smaller symbols, which had made it look like a compass from afar. A square, a circle, a triangle, and a diamond.

“They work like this” Tooth laid her finger on the triangle on her disk, which had the diamond in the middle, and the diamond on Bunnys’ disk started to glow purple. He hesitated a moment before touching the glowing symbol. Jack grinned as the two disks displayed the two guardians faces and Toothianas’ excited laughter could be heard from her mouth and from Bunnys’ disk. Curious, the Winter Spirit pressed the circle on his own and was greeted by a waving Sandy, the sand above his head clearly visible.

“Never needed something like this before” Bunny tried turning it off by pressing the diamond again, but nothing happened. Tooth fluttered over to him and moved his hand so it covered the triangle in the middle “But we may need them now. We don’t know what we’re dealing with… still”, her worried look wandered over to Sandy and Jack “It’s easier to talk to each other now. Even when we don’t know where the other one is”

The Sandman smiled warmly, signing that there was no need for Tooth to be so worried about him or Jack.

“Please just keep them on you” Tooth smiled brightly when she received nods and approving grumbles, in Bunnys’ case.

“With that all taken care of… How about some fruitcake before we part again?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I also got sidetracked by another great fandom and decided to make a really weird crossover... Check it out if you want.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written before I even started to post the story...

“I don’t think that would be a good idea” Jack watched as the golden sand vanished in the dark clouds beneath them, carrying dreams to the children. He didn’t even need to tell Sandy about his dreams. If someone knew about them it was him and what was supposed to help was… closure.

Sandy looked at him with one raised eyebrow, sand calmly signing above his head. The younger one saw it out of the corner of his eye and sighed “I know… But it’s not really the best time for that, if you know what I mean” Sandy nodded, understanding the Winter Spirits’ concerns, but still insisted.

“Mhm…”, Jack closed his eyes and leaned back against his staff, almost lying on it at this point “It’s summer over there” It wasn’t only the temperature that could become a problem for him, it didn’t even get that hot where she was buried. He had learned very early that Winter wasn’t the most popular season amongst the other seasonal spirits. Especially Spring and Summer were… almost hostile towards Winter Spirits. And he had no desire to get into a fight with a hotheaded spirit trying to keep the cold out of their season. “Even if I go at night…”, he sighed and dragged a hand over his face “Who knows if it’s even still there”

When Sandy nodded Jack had to smile. After so many years…

“Alright. I’ll blame you if I have to ask Elsa for a new hoodie”

The Sandman just silently chuckled at that.

The sun was almost down when Jack arrived.

He landed on a field next to the graveyard and looked around. It had been a century at least…

In the distance the ruins of a castle were visible as black silhouettes before the setting sun, a small town at the end of the road, the field around him was dotted with yellow flowers. Jack didn’t know their name, but he picked a few of them.

Laying his staff on his shoulder he walked towards the open iron gate. Once inside he saw a lot of wooden crosses. Fresh graves, the tombstones not finished yet. It looked like the cemetery had been recently expanded too. The Guardian bit his lip, feeling more and more uncomfortable and out of place with every step he took.

There was a second gate and a fence, closing off the oldest part of the cemetery. It was probably deemed historical at this point. The gate was locked but it was just a fence. It took him mere seconds to get over it. This part was as well maintained as the rest, but it lacked… care. There were no flowers or candles on these graves.

Now that the sun was down the temperature slowly dropped a few degrees, but it wasn’t really dark yet, even though it was a new moon night and only the stars were visible. Jack didn’t need light to find his destination anyway. He kneeled in front of the grave and traced the old inscription with his fingertips “Beloved daughter and sister…”

Jack leaned back for a moment, laying down his staff beside him and looking at the flowers in his hand “You were never really into things like flowers… but everything I would like to make will just melt” The flowers looked quite… lost after he laid them down. They weren’t used to cold touches.

“I bet you were pretty mad at me when I didn’t show up again…”, he kept his eyes on the half weathered away name “I guess you never married. Did you talk it out with your mom, or did you do something crazy?” The silence of the night was deafening. “… I’m sorry for leaving without a word… I thought you would be fine. Turns out I was wrong”

He played with the hem of his hoodie for a while before speaking again “I’m… having a lot of bad dreams about you… Not about you as in… you but-“, he shook his head “They are… just about me leaving you… about what might’ve happened. I- I don’t even know what happened. I came back… and you were dead” A slight breeze ruffled his hair and he sighed “Don’t even remember half the things I did after that… but the weather was quite a mess over here and the old man put me in charge of a few islands far away… I think I can count the spirits that didn’t laugh at me on one hand. But I guess that’s one reason why I didn’t come by… I’m not supposed to be here anymore… Especially now” Jack suddenly had to laugh “I’ll probably get fried if someone finds me here. Remember when we managed to light a campfire and set both our cloths on fire as well? Your mom was so mad at you. …but you know that she was only yelling because she cared…” a small smile was on his lips “I’ll… try to come by from time to time… but I need to go now, nights are shorter right now”

Jack hoped to find a library or some other kind of place that dealt with the history of this area to try and find out what had happened. Her death had to be on record somewhere.

He didn’t get up right away though. Now that he was here, he felt like he had to make up for ten years of absence, like he needed to make it up to Hiccup.

Suddenly he felt the temperature behind him rise, like something warm was coming close to him, precisely his head. It was probably a very stupid instinctive move that would get him in more trouble that it was worth, but he whirled around, one hand grabbing his staff and one catching and gripping tightly a tanned wrist, jerking it to his left. With his staff he hit the strangers’ legs to his right and the guy fell down with a surprised yelp but before Jack could let go of him to get away the other got hold of Jacks’ arm with his free hand. It was uncomfortably hot, even through the cloth of his hoodie.

The Summer Spirit groaned and pushed himself off the ground into a sitting position while Jack was trying to get his arm free. “Alright… I deserved that. Let me at least apologize for scaring you”

The Guardian looked at him fairly confused. That wasn’t what he expected. When the other spirit turned his head to look at him, he was even more astounded. He had heterochromia, two different eye colors. One iris was black and the other was pure white. It was a very strange sight, making it look like he had no iris at all and one very big and one comparatively very small pupil. Jack flinched when his opposite tensed up, his skin getting even hotter in the process. Maybe it wasn’t hot to a human but on Jacks’ skin it felt like burning. “C- could you please let go?”

Hearing the hint of pain in the Winter Spirits’ voice he immediately released him and backed away “I’m sorry. Not very good people-skills over here…”

Jack pulled his sleeve up and inspected his slightly irritated skin “It was probably because of my staring?”

The older looking spirit tugged on a strand of his tawny hair “Yeah… I know it looks weird… and everyone gets irritated by them”

“It’s not weird”, Jack smiled and pulled his sleeve back down “It’s just unusual. I’ve seen heterochromia before, but none like yours”

“And you don’t just say that because you don’t want to upset me and risk to get burned?”

The white-haired Spirit chuckled and shook his head “No. I’m Jack, by the way”

“… Hiroki”, he blinked “Wait. Jack as in ‘Jack Frost’? Guardian of Childhood?”

“Well… one of the Guardians, but yes, that’s me”

Hiroki cocked his head to his left, brows knitted and only looking at Jack with his black eye.

“Uh… Something wrong?” Jack knew that some spirits weren’t too fond of the guardians, for reasons no one ever explained. Did he really run into the one Summer Spirit that didn’t have a problem with Winter but did have a problem with the guardians?

“No…”, he cocked his head to the other side, closing his black and opening his white eye “I’m just wondering why a Winter Spirit _and_ Guardian of Childhood comes to a graveyard in the middle of summer to mourn a long dead woman”

Jack felt himself tense “That’s honestly none of your business”

“It is. Since I’m actually supposed to kick you out and not let you wander around in the wrong season…”

“… But you didn’t”

Hiroki shrugged lightly, cocking his head the other way again “I didn’t see a reason. You didn’t mess with anything and were kneeling in front of a grave”

“Then why are you looking at me like that?” the constant back and forth between getting stared at from a black and then a white eye made Jack feel incredibly nervous.

“Stupid tick that got me killed”

“Wha-“ “You feel guilty”, the Summer spirit straightened himself and raised his eyebrows, both eyes now trained on the Guardian “Why though?”

Jack felt his face heat up from anger “Did you eavesdrop on me?!”

“No. I came over after you were done talking”

“Then… How?!” Elsa and Tooth knew him for hundreds of years, but he literally met Hiroki not even five minutes ago.

“I thought about reasons for you to be here, picked the most likely one to me and said it out loud. And you freaking out about it shows me that I’m right”

“Bu-“

“She can’t be close family to you since you died what, five hundred years ago? And it’s pretty rare for a spirit to fall in love with a mortal”, Hiroki looked to the date on the tombstone “You’re a Guardian of Childhood. Everyone was a child at some point, and she died relatively young… so that was my best guess. I just don’t understand why”

Jack stayed silent. It was none of his business. He got up and murmured a Goodbye before turning around to leave but the other spirit wasn’t done talking.

“It’s not like you would’ve been able to stop a battle, taking place in a season you’re not allowed to be in”

The Guardian stopped dead in his tracks. His hands clenched into fists and he gritted his teeth, but he didn’t turn around. “You know…”

“How she died?”, the young man leaned forward, prepping his elbows on his knees “It was hard to miss”

“… I can see how this tick got you killed”

Hiroki shrugged “Do you want me to tell you?”

“… Why would you even help me?”, Jack usually wasn’t a suspicious person, but this spirit just confused him “Most of your ‘siblings’ would’ve tried to fry me by now”

“Don’t like to fight… You’ll leave on your own if I tell you, right?”

“I was about to leave”

The Summer Spirit laughed “Maybe the graveyard. If you continue to sneak around out there, you’ll run into some of my ‘siblings’ and get yourself burned” he sighed “And I didn’t have anybody to talk to for quite some time. I tend to infuriate people or scare them off for some other reason, as you can see…”

“I can see that pretty well” but it became clear to him that Hiroki didn’t mean to make him mad, just like Elsa didn’t mean to annoy him with her almost constant need to sing. After existing for hundreds of years some spirits just had some weird quirks. And this one was way more pleasant than starting a kill count. “Maybe we can work on that”

The other ones’ eyes widened while Jack turned around and leaned against his staff.

“Don’t tell me I’m making friends with a spirit from the opposite season?”

“You can just make friends with the Guardian of Fun if you’re bothered by my season”

Hiroki chuckled “I’m honestly not bothered by any of your occupations”

“You don’t even know all of them” Jack had to grin at the thought of being a dragon rider. Well, not really a rider like Hiccup or Astrid but he had a dragon as a friend.

“I’d love to learn more about them”, his mismatched eyes wandered back to the gravestone to his right “but I guess you want to know something else first”

“Yeah…” Jack sat back down and looked at the partly weathered inscription. He had no idea if it would actually make him feel better to hear how she died during a battle… Hiccup almost died during a battle too but he fought a dragon and Jack had accepted by now that he indeed couldn’t have helped much with a giant fire breathing creature but here… There were no dragons or anything like them around.

“The season was about to change, and the autumn spirits were already around. I don’t know what caused the humans to fight, no spirit knew since we don’t really pay attention to what happens between tribes or clans or whatever they are”, Hiroki scratched the back of his head looking slightly guilty himself “but actual battles were hard to miss. Not that we could do anything to prevent them, humans can’t see us and the Big Seasonals forbid that we involve ourselves”

Jack scowled and mumbled silently “Of course they did…” Elsa had been scolded multiple times by older spirits for trying to save mortals from the cold and Jack was told by Father Winter himself to stop interacting with children or any other mortal being. But Jack couldn’t care less about what the Big Seasonal of Winter told him not to do. He wasn’t ‘created’ by him, so he didn’t need to listen to him, which was incredibly infuriating to the higher spirit.

The other Spirit shrugged “I honestly don’t think we even have a right to intervene in their fights or arguments. They’re none of our business, not any more at least. So, we could just watch what happened, wondering if one of the fallen mortals would become a spirit like us. Well, like the autumn spirits. There wasn’t really a fire where someone could burn to death” Hiroki noticed the decrease in temperature and took it as a hint to not dwell any more on how the seasonal spirits just watched mortals die. The Guardian clearly didn’t like that mental image. “She stood out, to me at least, don’t know about the others. Many people around here have that kind of hair, but she looked like she was on fire with how she moved. Rarely seen so many arrows fired in a short amount of time or someone switching weapons so fast. She was incredibly skilled, especially for a woman”

“She always was…” Jack chuckling made the Summer Spirit look back at him. He was playing with one of his pendants. Jack suddenly had to think of Astrid. “Sometimes women are better fighters”

“More heroic too… I don’t think you need to feel guilty. Death is rarely a happy thing, but in my opinion…”, a small flame appeared on his open palm, barely illuminating their surroundings “it depends on the ‘why’. If I simply would’ve burned to death for no reason, I’d be scared of this… but there was actually something achieved that day… not only something lost. She didn’t die in vain” He paused for a moment. Then he smiled and got up, holding his free hand out to Jack to help him up “Let me show you something”


	16. Chapter 16

There were only a few hours left till sunrise as the two spirits followed the old road towards the dark ruins in silence.

Hiroki was still holding the small flame and kept an eye on the ground on the left side of the road, looking for a barely noticeable junction. The path was way narrower than the street and the tall grass on both sides made it hard to see but once found it was easy to follow it out on a field of grass and wildflowers.

“Did you make those?”

Jack smiled, he had absentmindedly played with his pendants the whole way “Yeah… She actually showed me how to do this. I’m just horrible at it and nobody else can really see what they are”

“That’s obviously an arrow”

“And this?” Jack held up the one that he knew was supposed to be a dragon, Toothless to be exact.

“Uh…” stumped Hiroki blinked at the piece of wood, again observing with one eye at a time.

The Winter Spirit had to laugh at that before he explained “It’s a dragon”

“Oh. Now I… No. I don’t see it. I’d probably get frustrated with things like that and scorch the wood…”

“It’s not that bad. It just takes practice”, he chuckled “I could use some of that too” He let go of the pendant and all three rested on the frosted blue fabric of his hoodie.

They walked in silence till they came up on a small stone structure in the middle of the field. It seemed to be a memorial. The tall grass around them swayed gently in the night breeze as Hiroki let the flame in his hand grew larger and brighter to get enough light to read the inscription.

“They put it here about two years after the battle. It was peace and they gave their thanks for it to the ones’ who died to achieve it. The heroes”

Jack let his eyes wander over the long list of names “… I didn’t even see this last time”

“Well… If you _were_ the Winter Spirit that went insane around here, I can understand why”

“I… did not go insane…”

“I can see that”, the flame in his hand faded away “If everything people say is true, Father Winter would have been all over you to get rid of you, wouldn’t he?”

“I think they actually tried…”, Jack had to chuckle “But the Big Seasonals just hate to admit failure. So, I guess that’s why they don’t say anything about it”

“True”, Hiroki shoved his hands in the pockets of his khaki shorts “Looking around they probably fucked up a few times while picking spirits… You’re feeling better?”

“… A little bit. Thank you” Simply knowing… actually made him feel better. He doubted that the nightmares would instantly stop but it was something.

The Summer Spirit was content with his answer and they stood in silence, soft breeze ruffling their hair and long grass around them swaying gently. Then it suddenly stopped. Both Spirits felt a shiver run down their spines, it felt like something was passing through them, like a mortal that didn’t believe… but there was no one around.

Jack was confused for a second. Hiroki was not. “Not a-fucking-gain!” Another bright flame appeared and would’ve most likely set fire to the grass if it wasn’t controlled by a spirit. There was nothing behind them. The winter spirit was about to ask but before he could his companion ran off, presumably after what had just passed them. Whatever it was…

The wind didn’t return, and for some reason Jack was afraid to call it.

Hiroki abruptly stopped at the edge of the forest and looked up at the starry night sky. The flame faded away and his arms fell to his sides. The posture of someone who realized he lost. “… Of course…”

“What just happened?”, Jack tried to find what he was looking at “What’s up there?”

“… You’re gonna call me crazy” The summer spirit lit another flame and continued walking.

“Try me”

“I seriously rather not… but you can help me find a body” He sounded so resigned that Jack was about to question if he was looking for dead bodies on a regular basis but there were so many other things to question that he just stayed silent and kept an eye out. The night breeze returned, and the forest was filled with the usual sounds of the woodland creatures roaming around and the leaves rustling in the wind. It felt like the world had held its breath and was only now starting to breathe again.

The woman sat slumped against a tree. If her eyes weren’t wide open, an expression of surprise on her face, you could mistake her for still being alive. There wasn’t even a single visible scratch on her. No sign of a struggle. She didn’t look sick. She was dead without a visible cause…

“I hoped I’d get through one new moon without this happening…”

“What?!”, Jack looked at him, still shocked about finding what the guardians had only heard of so far “This happens every new moon?”

“Yeah…”, the taller spirit kicked around a few pebbles “Don’t know what it is… Could never catch it”

The guardian just stared, his mind trying to put things together. The Man in the Moon was never able to give them any information about the deaths, other than dead people had been found. Just because you found a dead body doesn’t mean that they just died a few minutes or hours ago. Maybe it was days. Maybe it was the new moon night before it. Mim couldn’t see what was happening in these nights. So he wouldn’t be able to catch something. But why didn’t anyone else ever mention it? Probably because the Big Seasonals had forbidden to get involved so of course nobody would talk about it, especially not with the guardians. “Do you know anything else?!”

Now Hiroki looked confused “Not really. Why are you so excited about this?”

“Cause it’s not only happening here. It’s been happening all over the world for more than a year now. We’ve never been able to catch something like this” He paused. Did this even help? Why did it only happen on new moon? Was, whatever was causing it, aware that Mim was watching over the children and would be able to see? That would mean it was somewhat intelligent, right? That wasn’t good…

“’We’? Are you guardians taking care of this?”

“Well… we’re trying”, Jack scratched the back of his neck “Man in the Moon actually told us that it could end the world…”

Hiroki cocked his head “End in like explode or just everyone dies?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out…” This was probably a good time to try out Norths’ and Tooths’ little invention. Maybe the others should come here and take a look themselves- “Look out!” Even after Hiroki shoved him out of the way and he fell to the ground he still felt the immense heat of the fire ball. That had now hit the summer spirit. ‘Luckily’ the fire itself couldn’t do much damage, but getting thrown against a tree wasn’t that healthy either… Jack didn’t have much time to worry about him though before he was grabbed by the collar of his hoodie and lifted off the ground with very little effort. This summer spirit was definitely less approving off him wandering around… And he wasn’t alone.

“You seem to be lost, Winter Spirit” He looked like an old man, it sounded like he at least grew up in France, and he looked like he died maybe eight or nine hundred years ago… Or just a few years ago, who knew at this point…

“God damnit, Frollo…”, Hiroki sat up and glared with only his black eye open at the seemingly older spirit “He didn’t do anything. Stop throwing fireballs at everyone who pisses you off and let him go”

Judge Claude Frollo literally looked down at him “Silence. This is out of jurisdiction. It also seems like we have to deal with your-“ He didn’t get the chance to say with what exactly he needed to deal with. Maybe winter spirits couldn’t do much against fire, but summer spirits also didn’t like it much if their entire face was covered in ice. The instinctive reaction from the other spirit heavily scorched Jacks’ hoodie and he felt a nasty burn on his chin, but he managed to free himself and put at least some distance between him and the two hostile summer spirits.

“Jack! Leave!”

That was probably the smart thing to do right now… but he wouldn’t leave his friend all alone. On the other hand, Hiroki could just teleport away and was obviously about to do so. Another fireball was thrown in his direction and he decided to leave while he still could.

Not to the North pole just yet though…

“You did what?!” Elsa looked like she was torn between yelling at Jack for being stupid and going to do… something to the spirits who hurt her brother.

“Visiting someones’ grave in the middle of a summer night…” he rubbed his chin, even though the burn was already healed it still stung a bit.

Elsa pinched the bridge of her nose and finally decided to calm down instead of yell or doing something stupid herself. “Alright… You know it was an incredibly dumb and dangerous thing to do. Let me fix that” She placed her hands on the singed part of his hoodie and repaired it. “I… can’t fix those though…”

Jack looked down at the burnt pendants he was holding and managed a weak smile “It’s not a big deal… I can make new ones”

The other spirit knew that that wasn’t true, so she pulled him into a hug. “… You didn’t really need one for Hiccup anyway”

“Yeah…”, he rested his head on her shoulder for a moment “… I should probably call the others”

“Why wasn’t that the first thing you did?”

“I didn’t want to worry Tooth too much…” There was already enough to worry about…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is anyone bothered when I don't tag characters that show up for only one or two scenes?
> 
> First chapter where people use the f-word?


End file.
